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PHILOSOPHY 



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BARBY COEY'S 



PHILOSOPHY 



What Are We Here For, 

And What Is It AH About? 



A SERIES OF 



EPIGRAMMATIC REFLECTIONS 

! 

CLOSING OF THE ^TH^^jsJRY. 

BRITANNICA PUBLICATION HOUSE, 

95, 97 and 99 South Fifth Ave., New York 

PUBLISHERS, 



/ 



r<« 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1894, 



By William F. Cooper, 



In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



STERLING PRESS, 

97 SOUTH FIFTH AVENUE, 

NEW YORK- 




DEDICATION. 



THIS WORK IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY 

THE AUTHOR 

TO THE 

AMERICAN PEOPLE, 

The youngest, the most progressive, and greatest Christian nation 
in numbers and territory upon the earth 

AT THE 

CLOSING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 



PREFACE. 



This book is a treatise on the following subjects: 
Judgment Day — When the World Was a Baby — 
What is Death and Hereafter, and How we Will 
Know Each Other Facially in the Next World — Our 
Conscience Our Soul — This Earth in Collision with 
the Planet Mars — How to be Happy, whether You've 
a Cent or Not ! In addition to these interesting sub- 
jects, this work contains a bountiful harvest of humor, 
useful knowledge, aphorisms, morals, and stories of 
travels, experiences and discoveries in the wilds of 
Africa and the antique Indian countries of Mexico, 
Central and South America, along with a few more 
things, boiled down with common sense and season- 
ing. The author of this volume is well aware that it 
will not stand the test of literary canons, but he can 
justly lay claim to at least one negative merit — it is 
not a compilation of one who never experienced 
vicissitudes of life and fortune, nor was not beyond the 
sound of a door bell, or out of reach of his mother's 
apron-string. In consideration of this, it is a firopos 
to suggest that it is Christian in spirit to have charity 
of the mind and heart for the Aborigine who will 
never be censured by God when he has conscien- 
tiously done the best he knew how under the circum- 
stances, and who will be as well received in heaven as 
though he had been a Demosthenes or a Cicero. 
Nature is a good mother, and will take care of her 
own. Truly yours, 

The Author. 



SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 



A Bad Charge, page 35. A Beelzecoothy, 205. A Big Collection, 99. 
A Booby Son, 82. A Boss Fool, 139. A Case of Non-Regrettibus, 123 . 
A Charm Ihat Charms, 36. A Child's Prayer, 136. A Chin With a 
Useful Bird, 17. A Common Kinship, 94. A Curiosity Shop, 141. A 
Deserter,39. A Difficult Act in the Drama,28. A Duck Picking Lake, 
128. A Flimsy Substitute, 203. A Fool's Argument, 59. A Fool in 
Town, 217. A Foolish Move, 46. A Fit Closing to our Century, 255. 
A Good Antidote, 24. A Good Word, 18. A Grave Industry, 125. A 
Great Advantage, 240. A Hard Problem, 91 . A Hard Seat, 156, A 
Happy Disposition, 111. A High Priced Commodity, 47. A Hybrid 
Critic, 138. A Lazy Definition, 147. A Lobo Wolf, 206. A Logical 
View of Covetousness, 46. A Human Bee-Hive, 13. A One Armed 
Horse Thief, 245. A Poor Match Maker, 37. A Poor Sign, 56. A 
Pocket Roof ,] 66. A Righteous Judge, 19. A Reliable 1 Person, 28. 
A Scarce A.rt cle, 160. A Sharp Buyer, 60. A Spark ing Goddess, 131. 
A Snap Shot, 152. A Spherical Calculation. 80. A Tale of Tails ,201. 
A Thankless Job,81, A Temperance Lesson,57. A Tip to Railroad 
Men, 21. A Useful Parlez Vous, 69. A Valuable Equipment, 170. 
About Giving a Dog a Bad Name, 100. Acquiring Habits, 133. 
Accidentia! Prompters, 78. Actual Needs 150. Advertising for a 
Wife, 221. Advertisements are Editorials,121. Affinity and Alimony, 
45. After Chicago for Damages, 239. Age of the World, 137. 
Always Something to be Thankful For, 168. All Kinds Not Neces- 
sary, 22. All the Ills in the Catalogue. 126- Amendments, 42. 
Ananias and Sapphira, 151. Ancient Irish Mode of Fishing, 58. 
Antidotes for Weariness, 245- Arab Slave Traders, 56. As Others 
Hear Us, 81. At Sea, 90- Are There Too Many of Us? 186. 
Aztec Royalty, 12. Avoid Evil Influences, 53. An Idolized Child, 
30. An American Mother's Lament, 27. An Architectural Pointer, 
119. An Artful Tale, 238. An Electric Linguist, 175. An End to 
all Things, 39. An Every-Day Business Error, 44. An Experienced 
Christian, 104. 

B. 

Bad for the Faithful, 104. Bad Judgment, 227. Balm, 203- Bal- 
loon Toads, 248. Barbarism and Pockets, 25- Basis of Belief, 217, 
Become Acquainted With Yourself, 29. Better Than Doing Nothing, 
222. Before Columb as, 92. Be Careful of Success, 150. Bimetal- 
ism, 115. Borrowed Merit, 146. Booms, 140. Born Failures, 34. 
Blessing Children of a Larger Growth, 119. Blessings in Adaptabi- 
lity, 49. Blessing of Misfortune, 81. Bleached Blond Monkeys, 79. 
Brains and Intelligence, 158. Breaking Loose, 20. Burial at Sea, 206. 
Burninsr a Woman at the Stake, 68. By Their Works Ye Shall 
Know Them, 95- 



Can't Please All, 29. Cannibal Etiquette, 212. Cannon Balls and 
Flattery, 248. Capital Is Free, 47. Carted Away, 175. Cat Mother 



VI BAREY COEY's PHILOSOPHY. 

to the Rat, 141. Chalchekamula, 201 . Chasing An Armadillo With 
a Can-Opener, 247. Chasing Lightning Bugs, 92. Chicago and 
Cincinnati Gives Up, 61. Church Militant, 236. Christ Wants No 
Suffering, 245. Christian Reason for the Future, 11. Cicero's 
Dream, 37. Civilization's Polish, 125. Civilization No Graft for 
the Heathen, 212 Comfort and Pleasure, 70. Courage and Con- 
viction, 30. Couldn't Give an Explanation, 243. Couldn't Mistake 
that Grave, 47. Couldn't Keep Away, 91. Costly Monuments, 161. 
Columbus' Ubiquity, 140. Come to Stay, 141. Comparison of 
Animals, 42. Compass Grass, 23. Competition, 31. Complaint of 
Foreigners, 155. Compulsory Honesty, 117. Contagion, 34. Con- 
dition of the World, 42. k onquest of Mexico, 164. Creation and 
Extermination, 36. Credulity Crime's Victim, 235. Cruelty to 
Nails, 169. Cure for Sea Sickness, 70. 

D. 

Dave's Poor Luck, 71. Dangerous to Be Safe, 69. De Bone Don't 
Fight, 246. Dear Money, 232. Details of Life, 18. Dentist Birds, 
129. Definition oE a Working Man, 40. Died Young, 93. Dissolving 
Views, 157. Difficult Plans, 31. Did He Save the Saw ? 16. 
Difference Between Man and Woman, 27. Difference in Fools, 48. 
Difficult Part of Civilization, 22. Discretion and Valor, 23!, Divine 
Music, 236. "Don't Be a Clam," 163. Don't Protest Too Much, 
199. Don't You Forget It. 166. Documentary Love, 32. Doc Went 
Also, 70. Doing as You Please, 56 . Don't Be Too " Flip," 160. 
Don't Remove the Bung, 207. Domestic Fish, 180. Don't Know 
What They're Fighting For, 48. "Doing Your Fellows for a 
Livelihood, 97. Do We Need a War? 75. Don't Be Too Ready With 
Bitter Truth. 80. Do You Wan' t to Live Your Life Again ? 170. 
Don't Do It, 141. Don't Fly Too High, 202. Don't Sugar-Coat It, 
134. Do Right or Do Nothing, 51. Doing Unnecessary Things, 138. 
Don't Fear Injustice, 131. Dragged by an Anaconda, 19i Dress 
Reform, 2 12. Drive the Demon Out, 208 . Dupe Yet No Dupe, 235. 
Dust to Dust, 86. 

E. 

Eagerness, 48. Ear Troubles, 102. Echo, 79. Educated Frogs, 66. 
Educating a Fool, 25. Effect of Bad Times. 159. Egypt and 
Mexico, 211. Eighteen and Ninety Three, 22. Emigration, 84. En- 
chantment, 154. En Route, 127. Equality in Love, 158- Equally 
Cruel, 119. Establishing the Truth, 14. "Et Tu, Brute," 95. Even 
the Bravest Surrender, 85. Ever Lingering Near, 210. Every Country 
Has Its Scum, 120. Every Man's Duty, 132. Everybody May Be 
Successful, 189. Everything the Result of Something, 175. Every- 
body Not C nstituted Alike, 65. Eviis of Incumbrance, 68. Evils 
of Favoritism, 41 . Evils of a Rambling Mind, 45. Evil Occupation, 
119. Excessive Expectancy, 31. Experts for Revenge Only, 157. 
Extinct, 17. 



Facts, 28. Facts versus Chirography, 156 . Fair Play, 179. False 
Friends, 241. Feverish Prosperity, 30. First Love, 92. Fire and 
Petroleum, 95. Fly Time, 1 5. Fool Lncubators, 243. Fools and 
Wise Men in the Same Boat, 22. Fountain of Youth, 191. Foresight 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. VII 

Undertaker, 41. Fortunes of the Future, 139. Free Love, 223. 
From Wh-m We Can Learn, 190. Fully Equipped, 69. 



Genteel Beggars, 110. Get Into the Harness, 98. Getting Mad, 198. 
Gigantic Liars, 235. Gir.s and Presents, 148. Giving Sin a Long 
Lease of Life, 106. Go Before Your Maker Unincumbered, 82. " God 
Bless the Man Who First Invemed Sleep," 76 God's Economy, 27. 
Gold a Disturbing Element, 113. Guod By, Boston, 107. Good 
Effects of Studious Thought, 161. Good for Nothing, 97. Good 
Nataredly,26. Good Medicine, 157. Good Sports Tainted, 132. 
Good Times oming, 189. Go Slowly on Starting, 234. Go Slow, 189. 
Grasshoppers on Toast, 121. Grave Signs of Man's Exodus, 36. 
Great Accomplishments, 33. Great Civilizers, 70. Great Men and 
Women, 54. Greediness, 23. Gullible Gambler's Faith, 149. 

H. 

Happy Roamer of the Forest, 237, Hard Times to Raise Money, 29. 
Hard to Forget a Child, 163. Hard Way to Earn a Living, 234. 
Harvest, 35 Has Its Day, 26. Have Some Pride About You, 222. 
Have to Back Water, 109. Have Patience, 25. Hawks' Claws, 209. 
Heartless Fascination, 157. Heavenly Instinct of an Infant, 130. He 
Greased His Mouth, 105. He'll Make a Good Canner, 53. Her 
Mother's Grave, 76. He Played Poker, 200. He Saw Millions in It, 
150. Here— not Hereafter, 159. High Priced Kickers, 107. High 
Strang, 57. His Best Friend, 217. History Repeats Itself, 134. 
Hoarders of Money, 147, Holiness and Righteousness, 162. Home 
Made Relics, 114. Ho pels Va'uable Security, 83. House Upsetters, 
238. How the World Is Run, 190. How to Get to China in Twelve 
Hours, 136. How to Keep People, 93. How to Take a Vacation, 204, 
How to Convert a Sinner, 16. How About This, 123. How to Pre- 
pare Green G.ffce, 202. How Whistling Started, 152. How toSettle 
Grievances, 41. How Would This Work With " the Finest? " 81. 
How the Human Family Utilizes Itself, 47. How to Be Happy 
Whether You've Got a Cent or Not, 251. How Bills Run Up, 174. 
How I received Inspiration of a Future Life, 121 . How to Say It, 
24. How We Grow Critical, 132. How I Lost a Million, 106. How 
Many Will Turn Out Good, 153. How Ability Is Developed, 177. 
How Old Terra Will Wind Up, 229. How to Solve the Labor 
Question, 42 . How to Shoulder a Loss, 151. How our Minds Should 
Change, '233. How We Should Live, 218. How to do It, 80. How 
Money Is Made and Lost, 110. Human Weevils in the Flour of the 
Family, 62. Humiliating Charity, 133. Hymen's Hanks, 89. 



If I Could Only Recall, 109. If I Was in a Sinking Ship, 150. If 
These Had Their Say, 11. If They Were Women, 75. In a Bad Fix, 
181. In and Out, 90. In at One Ear, etc., 83. Incentives to Progress, 
84. Indian Wish Root, 220. Individuality, 117. Industriously 
Wrong, 64. Industry Punished by Fines, 40. Inevitable Penalties, 
184. Influence of Imaginatton, 74. In Sheep's Clothing, 74. In the 
Midst of Life We Are in Debt, 27. 1 1 the Way of Ourselves, 120. 
Intricate Art, 177. Inventor and Transgressor, 244. .Invisible Grave 
Stones, 224. Is the Moon Broke ? 146. it All Depends, 145. It Does 



VIII BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

Sometimes Happen, 102. It Had Eyes, 185. It Is Possible to Have 
Too Much of Anything, 159. In Case of War With England, 96. Im- 
aginary Aristocracy, 223. 



Jawbone Statesmanship, 195. Judgment Day, 12. Just As Impossible, 
107. Jnst to Have It Said, 58. 

K. 

Keep Cool, 178. Keep the Peace and Be Civil, 153. Keep Your Eyes 
Open, 204. Keep Your Weather Eye Open, 102 . Kicking against 
Their Own Doings, 139. Knights of Labor, 149. Knowledge without 
a Master, 114. 



Lack of Realization, 192. "Lady " and "Gentleman," 213. Latter 
Day Slavery, 140. Laughs, 33. Lawyers and Rip-Saws, 136. Law • 
yer and Litigant, 85. Leading Rulers, 36. Lead Them Not into 
Temptation, 74. Learned and to be Learned, 116. Leave Out the 
Weight, 105. Learn When You Can, 20. Let Thought Precede Ac- 
tion, 250. Let Us Annex Cana la, 61. Liberal Views, 115. Life Not 
a Burden, 167- Life Not a Failure, 133. Like an Infant, 168. Liv 
ing off God, 24. Living on Their Wits, 130. Living Science, 109. 
Logic and Bread, 193. Looking Backward, 233. Look Out for it, 
97. Look Out for Schemers, 199. Look Out for Your Irons, 76. 
Look Within! 139. Lops 'em Off, 154. Love and Fear, 208. Love 
Never Dies, 23. Love of Locality, 56. Luck versus Pluck & Co., 60. 
Lunch Tasted Good, 84. 

M. 

Making Gods While You Wait, 65. Man and Wife, 103. Manly Men, 
107. Man, 33. Man and Woman, 103. Man a Reservoir of Animal 
Nature, 52. Man Not Smart in All Things, 190. Man's Beginning, 
7J. Man's Ingratitude— Dogs' Fidelity, 137. Man's Many Ways to 
Act the Fool, 1 18. Man's True Strength, 1 18. Man's Truck Patch, 
191. Man's Unruly Toniu?, 111. Many Ways to Be Poor, 129. 
Mental Correspondence, 90. Mer oiaids and Sea Cows, 169. Min- 
strels Come Again No More, 59. Misconstruction, 188. Miseries of 
Office, 218. Mishaps, 101. Modern Trappers, 100. Modesty and 
Bravery, 145. Monkey, Horned Toads and Woodpeckers, 228. 
Worse Than Anarchy, 46- Mortifying. 87 . Mother Won't Be with 
You Always, 241. Mouth Wisdom, 65. Moving Is Healthy, 180. 
Mrs. Columbus, 167 . Must Keep the Engagement, 29. Myopia Not 
in It, 126. 

N. 

Needs Confirmation, 162. Never Appreciated Until After Death, 182. 
Never Bank on Anticipation, 181. Never Be too Quick to Take Offence, 
224. Never Drown a Woe, 225. Never Find Fault with Weather, 82. 
Never Get Scared, 63. Never Give Up, *5. Never Live Long, 126. 
Never Out While You're In, 145. Never Spoil a Good Yarn, 108. 
Never Stoop to Little Things, 222. Never Surrender to Adversity, 
237. Never Talk of Killing Time, 181 . Newspapers and Charity, 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. IX 

189. No Bill of Fare. 89. No Excuse for Ungodliness, 109. No Faitl 
in Themselves, 232, ' No Hustle, No Get, 191. No Individual Birth- 
Days, 72. No Loafing, 142. No Occasion For Anybody to Be Idle, 
26. No Place Like Home, 200. No Proprietorship, 158. No Rest 
in the Grave, 237. No Stop Over Place, 127. No Wonder They Fail 
ed, 33. Not All Your Friends, 132. Not AU Wrong, 53. Not as Bad 
as We Imagine, 21. Noted Persons, 1 95. Not Far Now, 226. Not 
for That Purpose, 74. Nothing Much Left to Patent, 93. Not in the 
Three R's, 149. Not the Most Learned, 18. Not Warranted, 154. Not 
Worth Doing Wrong for, 162. 

0. 

Object Lessons, 138. Objective Charity, 170. Off Days, 163. Oh, 
What a Difference, 196. Old and New, 177. One Benefit of the Lale 
War, 88. One More Means One Les3, 72. One of the Evils of Uni- 
versal Suffrage, 82. One of the Many Sources of Lying, 131. ( ne- 
Sided Education, 114. Onlookers' Wisdom. 185. Opportunities, 
49 . Optical Travelers. 33. Origin of Stone Builuings , 49. Orig n of 
the Four Hundred, 201 . Origin of Values, 50. Other Folks' Busi- 
ness, 35. Out of Place, 25 . Out of Sight, 155. Our Conscien e Is 
Our Soul, 122. Our Modern Social System, 51. 

P. 

Pan-American Dollar, 48. Pan Judgment, 92. Pardonable Mistakes, 
194. Partial Kindness, 99. Passing of the Stone Age, 232. Passion's 
Train, 66. Past Life, 42. Peaceable at Home, 89. Peace and Civil 
ization, 60, Peculiarly Constituted, 167. Pedigree, 43. People Who 
Rob Themselves, 246. Personal Devils, 136. Physical Equality, 146 . 
Physical Disability, 122. Picke,115. Picture Writing, 150. Pitch 
and Location, 106. Play F rret, 40. Points of Law, 88. Points on 
Fishing, 46. Poor Tensile Strength, 147. P opular Government, 32. 
Position of Saying, 89- Practical Scientists, 57. Present and Future, 
40. Principal and Impulse, 118. Pri vat ) and Public, 91. Procli- 
vities, 45. Profession and Occupation, 71. Profit by This, 183. 
Promotion, 192. Proprietors and Employes, 83. Protect the 
Eagle, 44. 



Quauhquechotl, 52. Queen Victoria, Porfirio Diaz, France, Russia, 
Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Auld Scotia's Sons, The *' Chosen 
People," The Honest Hollander, Central and South America, 252 to 
255. 

R. 

Race Prejudice, 127. Rapid Transit Age, 104. Reference, 52. Religion 
of Old Maids and Bachelors, 110. Religion of the Plumber, 148. 
Remedy for 111 Humor, 83. tiemember 'lhis Truth, 40, Resol tion, 
24. Respite, 216- Responsibility of Bad Government, 46. Resur- 
rection Day, 213. Revolution in Agricultural Appliance s, 97. Rich 
and Poor Have Their Day, 15. Rooming with a Boa Constrictor, 
219. Room Left fur Improvement, 146. Rules by Proxy, 86. 

s. 

Salt, 88. Satan As a Caterer, 117. Sawbill Ducks, 73. Science and 
Christianity, 78. Scold But Never Instruct, 112. Seeing and 



X BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

Grasping, 1 51. Self-important, 30. Self -Reliance, 128. Service 
and Show, 85. Settled for Life, 64. Settling Day, 66. She's His 
Shepherd, 91. Short History of Progress, 113. Short on Ability, 
153, Should Go Together, 236. Shut the Door Softly, 233. Sign 
of the Coward, ] 84. Sir Absolute, 197. Smatterman,226. Soap, 
235. S rrow, 122. Source of Much Bad Feeling, 205. Sowing and 
Planting, 181. Spain's Apology for Mexico, 216. Spelling Alters 
Cases, 107. Sport, 230. Standard of Intelligence, 188. String Bean 
Charity, 48. Success in Life, 94. Sudden Success, 67. Sugar 
News, 166. Sunday and Week Day Manners, 153. Squared His 
Losses, 185. Swath-Cutters, 226- 

T. 

Tailor Made, 44. " Take Your Partners," 101. Taking Things As 
They Come, 198. "Talk Is Cheap, But Money Buys Land," 64. 
Tantalizing Tests, 101. Taste versus Fashion, 52. Tell the Truth— 
to Your Lawver, at Least, 199. Temper Plays Havoc with Judg- 
ment. 102. Temptation and Trade, 34. Testimonials and Mythol- 
ogy, 51. That Apple, 2^5. That Is Love, 224. That Welcome 
Postman, 132. Thawing Dynamite, 210. The After Effects of Pin, 
166. The Blind See, 80. Tue Campaign Liar, 62. The Columbian 
Exposition, 1893,207. The Dark Agt s Have Passed, 41. The De- 
mand Greater Than the Supply, 65. The Devil's Assayer, 45. The 
Devil's Generosity, 170. The Difference in Languages, 1 8. The 
Failure of Expeditions, 32. The Farmer's Expe t tions, 168. The 
Fate of Many a Genius, 32. The Fear of Ridicule, 148. The Foe of 
Despair, 133. The Future of Africa, 187. The Future of Criminal 
Law, 193. The Future of Electricity, 75. The Good Old-Time 
Darkey, 145. The Gold Cure, 205 . The Grand Transformation, 147- 
The Greatost Naturalist, 26. The Green-Eycd Monster, 94. The 
Gun Went Off Accidentally, 163. The Iron March of Progress, 78. 
The Jewel Time of Life, 171 . The Junk Time of Life, 171 . The 
Key to Production, 66. The Land of the Flea and the Home of 
the Slave, 54. The Last Chapter, in answer to What We Are 
Here For and Wh it It Is All About, 256. The Last Thing To Give 
Away, 224. The Law of Compensation, 93. The Lesson of Hard 
Times, 158. The Longs and Shorts, 239. The Modern Coll»gian, 
202. The Origin of "Chatelaine," 21. The People's Vocaulary, 
113. The Phonograph, 89. The Picture of Life, 100 The Power 
of Pelf, 195. The Proper End of the Horn, 89. They Do, 19. The 
Thing to Do, 111. The Time to Save Money, 96 . The Toltec Code, 
214. The True American, 33. This Earth in Collision with the 
Planet Mars; or, The True Story of the Flood, 37. The Value of 
a Flint, 15. The Wealthy Charitable, 227. The Whiskey Trust, 
237. "Time and Tide," 160. Time! Time! Time! 228. 

u. 

Umbrellas and Canes, 252 . Unapprecia ed Honesty , 67- Uncalled- 
for Liberality, 82. Uncle Charley has moved, 129. Uncovered 
Heads, 128. Under "Public Necessities," 99. Unselfishness a 
Jewel, 75. Upon Whom the Ran Falls, 111. Upper-ten Animals, 
28. Up to Date Advice, 95. 

V. 

Value of Life, 84. Value of a Good Stroke, 179. Vertigo, 154. Vin- 
dication of Labor, 147. 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

In the fight, pursuit and struggle for the mighty- 
dollar, more suffering is encountered and more people 
destroyed and wounded than ever occurred in blood- 
red warfare. 



IF THESE HAD THEIR SAY. 

If tramps and other idlers had their say, the sawing 
of wood would become a lost art. 



CHRISTIAN REASON FOR THE FUTURE. 

Does it stand to reason that God created man and 
educated him through trials, suffering and hard work 
to learn and to teach others how to live, to find at the 
finish there is nothing to live for? No, my friends, 
such arguments will not stand the test of reason. If 
it was for the short time only in this world man was 
created, then what was the use of creating him at all? 
Man's three-score-and-ten years in this world is only 
a kindergarten leading up to higher surroundings. 
What we learn in this world, we only begin to realize 
the true blessings of in the next. God had a purpose 



12 BARBY COEY's PHILOSOPHY. 

in putting us in this world, otherwise we wouldn't 
be here. 



JUDGMENT DAY. 
Time is judgment, and each hour and day of our 
lives we are judged according to our thoughts, words 
and actions. To-day is judgment day ; we are judged 
as we live and not as we die. Death has nothing to 
do with our living. Life is one journey here in this 
world and death the end of the voyage, and where we 
change for another and a better world. Death is a 
messenger sent from heaven to pass us over the river 
of life, to where greater blessings await us and which 
has been prepared for us by our Heavenly Father. 
Then for the short time we are on the journey here 
in this world, we should be patient, kind and agree- 
able to one another, and all act in harmony, to make 
the voyage as pleasant, happy and enjoyable as pos- 
sible. Life is made up of a variety of things, many of 
which we didn't expect in the beginning, and so it is 
with this book, which is made up of a variety of sub- 
jects incident to the vagaries of life. 



OUT OF PLACE. 

No one can ever make a success in anything or 
in any circle for which nature never intended him. 



AZTEC ROYALTY. 
Royal titles among the Aztec Indians were acquired 
through marriage, similar to those in operation with 
American heiresses to-day, except that the parents 
of the bride received titles also. For instance, an 
Indian Prince went bushwhacking for a 'rich heiress, 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 13 

and when he had captured the boodle maiden of his 
choice, she was known thereafter as a Chiltypony, 
which means a women who is the wife of a titled 
personage. The father and mother of the Chiltypony 
were known respectively as a Dosmoltykotl and a 
Sinwantypetl. A lady engaged to a titled man of her 
choice was known as a Cheecheeweetykootl during 
the engagement until the nuptials were consummated 
— then, like a tadpole, she developed into a Chilty- 
pony. The spirit of the Aztec is in some of our people 
to-day, who swap their birthright and give money to 
boot for empty titles of foreigners, and in some 
instances a life, of misery, for worse than a mess of 
pottage. Good Lord and George Washington for- 
give us ! 



TWO PHASES OF LIFE. 

Life consists of two phases — namely, feeling good 
and bad. Everyone is his own feeler in this world, 
and it's only when one trusts his feelings to others 
that he gets left. The best thing to feel of is money, 
for, when you can feel plenty of that, you feel happy 
and independent, provided you are out of debt, and 
don't feel that others are in debt to you who will 
never pay up. Man's injustice to himself and wrong- 
doing to others produces bad feeling all around, for 
it is a divine law that no man can knowingly wrong 
another without at the same time committing a 
wrong upon himself. 



A HUMAN BEE-HIVE. 

How few of the millions of readers of newspapers, 
like those with a dish of honey set before them, ever 



14 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

think or realize from whence or how it came. A 
newspaper office is a bee-hive of knowledge, in- 
dustry, power and intellect, where the busy bee, 
called reporter, deposits for distribution news gathered 
from all sources, and what is going on daily in the 
world, far and near, and in every clime. This news, 
when deposited, is put into type form and placed in 
printing presses, which turn out complete copies of 
daily encyclopaedias, called newspapers, at the rate of 
forty thousand per hour, more or less, according to 
the circulation of the paper and capacity of the ma- 
chines. Millions of copies of these reservoirs of 
knowledge and information are daily distributed in all 
languages throughout the world, and sold at from one 
to ten cents per copy, thus affording the poor laboring 
man the same free and independent opportunity of 
keeping posted abcut what is going on in the 
world as the college graduate or the millionaire. 
America and her people to-day owe much of their 
success and enlightenment to newspapers, magazines 
and illustrated periodicals, which constantly keep be- 
fore the public a dazzling record of the progress of 
Christianity, and without which the light of civiliza- 
tion would be turned down to the point of darkness. 



ESTABLISHING THE TRUTH. 

Lies have more lives than cats, and die harder. It 
is often more easy to establish the truth than it is to 
destroy a lie, though it be nailed. No matter how 
often a falsehood may be exposed and its baseless- 
ness established and clearly proven, there are lurk- 
ing coyotes always about seeking to catch whom they 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 5 

may devour, acting on the well-known axiom that 
most people will believe a falsehood any time in pre- 
ference to the truth. 



FLY TIME. 

When flies appear, it am a sign ob Spring, 

An' de Jersey muskeeter's on de wing; 

Look out for dese debils, wid a brand new bill, 

Who buzz an' bite, an' sting as dey will. 

People wonder de reason why 

God made de skeeter an' de fly — 

He made dem for de birds to eat, 

Which, in turn, am our meat — 

So now you see de reason why 

God made de skeeter an' de fly. 



RICH AND POOR HAVE THEIR DAY. 

Rich people in the Summer have to pay for their 
ice, and take to the mountains at great expense to 
keep cool, while the poor people, in the Winter, get 
ice free and keep cool for nothing, and don't have to 
leave home, either. 



THE VALUE OF A FLINT. 
In every piece of flint there are stored thousands of 
sparks of fire, but to elicit them requires steel. 

THE RISE AND FALL OF NATIONS. 
Nations, like every thing else, have their epochs, 
or periods of time. Some are inferior to others, the 
same as man, but their allotted time takes no note 
of that. The quicker a thing is constructed the 
sooner it will reach its Highest point of usefulness 



\6 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

and begin its decline, and its time depends upon the 
material used in its construction and how it is con- 
structed. America has made greater progress in one- 
fifth of the time than any other nation on the face of 
the earth, and she is not out of her teens yet. 



HOW TO CONVERT A SINNER. 
It is no way to convert a sinner by making 
him feel bad and rubbing his sins in on him. The 
way to convert him is by diverting his mind from 
his sin, and pointing out, in a cheerful and entertain- 
ing manner, the glorious path of righteousness. A 
person frightened into repentance won't keep over 
Sunday. 



DID HE SAVE THE SAW? 
A party of us went a-raccoon hunting one night, 
and among us was a kind of half-witted fellow by the 
name of Ace Reed, who could be induced to do most 
anything by praising him a little. The dogs- treed 
five coons up a big sycamore on the bank of a river. 
The coons were all together, away out on a big limb 
projecting over the water, and while one of our party 
went back to the house after a saw, the rest of us 
talked Ace into climbing the tree, and when the saw 
came, he took it, and up the tree he went till he 
reached the limb, on which he sat astride, with his 
back to the coons — and if he didn't sit there and de- 
liberately saw the limb off between him and the tree, 
I'm not sitting here ! Down came the limb, coons, 
Ace Reed, saw, and all, into the water, and before 
we could prevent it, the dogs were in the water, too, 
and had both of Ace's ears bitten off. The dogs 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 17 

thought they had struck a new kind of coon. We 
lost the saw — and the coons got away .. ..Moral. — 
Never saw the limb off between you and the tree. 

EXTINCT. 

If we all were to destroy our enemies, the human 
race would be extinct. 



WHAT ADAM AND EVE DID. 
Adam and Eve appeared on earth last Summer, 
and traveled through Italy and Spain, after which 
they came over to America and made a tour of the 
States, visiting all the principal cities North and 
South and as far West as San Francisco. They said 
everything in America had been changed, but Italy 
and Spain were the same as when they left. They 
hadn't changed a bit. 



WHY THERE ARE HYPOCRITES IN THE 
CHURCH. 

Counterfeiters imitate bills of banks in high 
repute. They never make an imitation of a 
bill of a bank not in good standing. Their forged 
paper is always upon financial institutions of un- 
doubted credit. So it is with hypocrites, who clothe 
themselves in the purple and fine linen of the house of 
God, the highest and most sacred institution of 
morality in the land. A religious hypocrite is an 
intruder upon the church, the same as a forger is an 
impostor upon a bank. No reflection is cast upon 
either institution, any more than if a man forged 
your name to a piece of paper — the sympathy of all 



1 8 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

honest Christians and the law would be with you and 
the criminal would be punished. And so it is with 
religious hypocrites— the sympathy of the people and 
the law is with the church, while the impostors are 
often sent to prison. The church is all right. It is 
the devils in the employ of Satan who counterfeit its 
high standard securities of morality who are the 
bad eggs. 



NOT THE MOST LEARNED. 
People with the biggest libraries are not always the 
most learned. 



A GOOD WORD. 
One of the best words ever uttered is charity. 



DETAILS OF LIFE. 
The details, hardships and suffering attending suc- 
cess is never considered by the public, which judges 
man's ability and worth by what he finishes, not 
what he undertakes. If you are "broke," suffering-, 
hungry and in want, trying to accomplish a purpose, 
no one will take any particular notice of you or ad- 
vance you any very great amount of sympathy, but 
the moment you have accomplished a worthy object 
the tide will turn in your favor. 



THE DIFFERENCE IN LANGUAGES. 

What is in a language is easily demonstrated in the 
following example: When Columbus discovered 
America, the Continent was inhabited by Indians, 
who spoke their many different dialects. That part 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 19 

of the continent north of the Rio Grande was settled 
by the English-speaking race, which changed the 
country into an English-speaking people, imbued 
with the spirit of Christianity. Note the progress 
and present condition of that nation to-day. South 
of the Rio Grande was settled by Spaniards, imbued 
with the spirit of religion, and the language was chang- 
ed to Spanish. Note the condition of that country and 
its people to-day, then compare the two, and you will 
readily see the difference not only in language but 
also the difference between religion and Christianity. 



A RIGHTEOUS JUDGE. 

A righteous judge will never sell justice. He will 
administer it impartially, without price. Such is 
Christian justice. 



THEY DO. 

Experience has taught me to believe that it is a fact 
that the good do die young — to a very great extent. 



DRAGGED BY AN ANACONDA. 

The subject of this story, while traveling in the 
dark forests of Africa, was caught one day in a rain- 
storm, and fearing an attack of chills and fever, he 
drank a quart of tangle-foot rum before retiring to 
his ground-floor couch, under a banyan tree. Along 
about daylight he felt himself going somewhere, and, 
to his horror, discovered that an enormous ana- 
conda, thirty feet long and as big around as a beer 
keg, had crawled up while he was asleep, and lashed 
both of his feet together with its tail, and was drag- 



20 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

ging him into the jungle, to swallow him. He was 
then about two miles from home, in sight of the 
jungle, and still going. He had not gone more than 
two hundred yards further when the snake and he 
met another explorer, out looking for ivory ; and as 
soon as the snake saw the newcomer, it let its victim 
loose, and ran off into the jungle, only fifty yards 
away, and when the poor fellow stood upon his feet, 
to thank his friend in need, he was as sober as a 
judge. His friend told him of an experience he had 
once near the Upper Congo River district, where he 
suddenly ran up against a pile of anaconda snake, 
forty-seven feet long; and before he had time to 
think, the huge monster struck him on the hip pocket, 
in which he had a copy of ' ' Ingersoll's Mistakes of 
Moses," and that saved his life. If he'd been read- 
ing it he'd been killed Moral. — Beware of rum, 

even as a medicine, in snake-size doses. 



LEARN WHEN YOU CAN. 
Never be ashamed to learn from anyone. 



BREAKING LOOSE. 
Every now and then something breaks loose, either 
to attract our attention, or give us pleasure or trouble. 
Wonder what '11 happen next \ 



THE HUMAN FAMILY A MENAGERIE. 

In the human family there are beings imbued with 
the spirit of animals, from our good, kind and domes- 
tic friends, the horse, dog and cow, down to the low- 
est order. Some have the spirit of tigers, impelling 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 21 

them to murder and devour, while others have the 
spirit of the viper. 

NOT AS BAD AS WE IMAGINE. 

Half the things which bother us are not half as 
bad as we imagine. , 



WOULDN'T BE NOTICED. 
People who marry for money wouldn't think of 
marrying that same person if he or she were poor. 
They wouldn't notice 'em on the street. 



WHEN MAN'S A FOOT BALL. 
When prosperity deserts a man, he becomes a foot 
ball of misfortune. 



WHEN THE WEDDING FAILS. 

Divorce is the gall and vinegar assets left after the 
failure of the wedding. 



THE ORIGIN OF "CHATELAINE." 

The word "chatelaine" is of Indian origin, and 
was used by the savages as descriptive of the orna- 
menting their waists with scalps. Modern fad-chasers 
use it nowadays to describe the ornamentation of their 
waists with fashionable junk. 



A TIP TO RAILROAD MEN. 
It would be to the best interest of both the rail- 
roads and the traveling public if every railroad ticket 
sold were also an insurance policy, covering accident 



22 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

in transit. Our large insurance companies could well 
afford to insure every passenger in the United States 
and Canada for less than five cents on every ticket. 
Steamships lines might also look into this. 

ALL KINDS NOT NECESSARY. 

They say it takes all kinds of people to make a 
world. There are many kinds in existence the world 
would be better off without. 



THE LOVE OF THE POOR AND RICH. 

Christ was the only poor person ever universally 
loved. After his death mankind turned to worship- 
ing men of gold. 



DIFFICULT PART OF CIVILIZATION. 

The greatest difficulty to contend with in civiliza- 
tion, is that we've got to have money to "be in it." 
If it wasn't for that it wouldn't be so bad. 



FOOLS AND WISE MEN IN THE SAME 
BOAT. 

It is not only fools and their money who part, for it 
is a common occurrence for the wisest business man 
or firm to lose their money in unfortunate transac- 
tions. 



EIGHTEEN AND NINETY THREE. 

The year 1893 was one of unprecedented bank 
failures, panics and commercial disaster. Never be- 
fore, in the world's history, were there so many 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 2$ 

laboring people out of employment, penniless, hun- 
gry nor more scantily dressed s\nce the day they 
were born. 



WHY DO PEOPLE DO WRONG? 

Why is it that people do wrong, when there is so 
much more to be gained by doing right ? 



LOVE NEVER DIES. 

Love never dies, though it often changes the ob- 
ject of its choice, and seeks other investments, where 
it is appreciated and reciprocated. 



WHERE IT REQUIRES NERVE. 

It requires nerve and composure to bear up under 
the frowns and scowls of a lost fortune. , 



GREEDINESS. 

Greedy lust for more than enough has reduced 
thousands from wealth and social position, to poverty, 
misery, shame and disgrace. 



WHAT IS HAPPINESS ? 
Happiness is contentment. Excessive want de- 
stroys contentment, without which there can be no 
happiness. 



COMPASS GRASS. 

A peculiarity of the compass grass is, that when a 
blade of it is on the surface of the water, it points 



24 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

north and south, and was used by the ancient mari- 
ners to guide their ships. 



HOW TO SAY IT. 

It is not always what a man says that counts ; it's 
the way he says it. 



A GOOD ANTIDOTE. 

The best and only reliable antidote for evil ways is 
reformation. 



TUNE UP DE FIDDLE. 

Lay down de shobel an' de hoe, 
Pick up de fiddle an' de bow — 
Partners for the Old Virginia reel ! Let's live till 
we die! 



LIVING OFF GOD. 

Some people are continually asking favors of God, 
but never earn any themselves. 



'WARE MALICE I 
Life is too short to waste on enmity. There's 
nothing in it. 



RESOLUTION. 
A good resolution is good for nothing unless it's 
backed up by the exertion of will power. 



WHERE ARE YOU LOCATED? 

When a person dies you can't always tell what part 
of heaven he or she went to. The Lord's domain is 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 2$ 

a bigger place than all the planets, moons and worlds 
put together. Our conduct in this woAd has every- 
thing to do with our location in the next. 



NEVER GIVE UP! 

Never become despondent or discouraged. So long 
as there's life there's light. 



HAVE PATIENCE. 

Good things come slowly. 



OUT OF PLACE. 

Every fellow out of prison isn't deserving of his 

liberty. 



BARBARISM AND POCKETS. 

When a human being becomes sufficiently advanced 
above barbarism to wear clothing, his most sensitive 
point is his pocket. 



TOO AMBITIOUS. 

John Andrewson was left a fortune ; so the scheme 
sharks got after him, and landed him as president of 
a big corporation , now he is dead broke and the 
sharpers have his money. He vainly imagined it a 
big thing to be a president, and, poor fellow, paid 
dearly for his vanity. 



EDUCATING A FOOL. 

A fool can only absorb a limited amount of educa- 
tion, no matter how much is placed at his disposal, 



26 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

and what he does absorb often proves more dangerous 
and expensive to himself and friends than if he had 
never acquired an educational smattering. 



THE GREATEST NATURALIST. 
The greatest and most entertaining naturalist is a 
natural one, who studies nature, not for gain, but for 
pure love of nature. 



THE AFFAIRS OF OTHERS. 

The trouble with many people is that they give too 
much attention to the affairs of others, and neglect 
their own. 



GOOD-NATUREDLY. 

Take life and death good-naturedly, for they are 
natural. 



NO OCCASION FOR ANYBODY TO BE 
IDLE. 

There is never any reason for any one in health to 
be idle, even if they have lost the place where they 
have been working, for that means that they have a 
bigger job on hand than before in finding another. 
People out of a job have harder work, longer hours 
and less pay than those employed. 



HAS ITS DAY. 

Everything has its day, 
Like man, passes away. 
Customs, like habits, change and finally disappear, 
and something else better takes their place. Day by 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 2J 

day the human family is growing wise* and better, 
and the time is not far distant when the evil habit of 
intemperance will be a thing of the past. 



GOD'S ECONOMY. 
God is so good that nothing is lost worth saving. 



DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN AND WO- 
MAN. 

Man and woman have special qualifications neces- 
sary to the peace, happiness, existence and worri- 
ment of mankind. 



AN AMERICAN MOTHER'S LAMENT. 

An American mother's lament comes in after she 
has married her daughter off to foreign royalty, for a 
title filled with emptiness. Her woes would stop a 
runaway deaf mule. 



IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN 
DEBT. 

My Dear Brudderin : I come here to explain de 
great and ogdyfyin' constitution what hab nebber bin 
zacavealed till yit. Dis mornin', while me and some 
udder brudderin wuz settin' on de wood pile, 'long 
come de debbil on his mighty fours, seekin' whom he 
might dewour. All de rest ob de brudderin dey run 
away; but me, brave wretch, pitched in with de 
debbil, and knocked him out, all but a little greasy 
spot, in de middle ob de road. Den I axed him for 
what he 'saulted me, and he said I owed him half a 



28 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

dollar balance on de last robbin' ob de hen roost. I 
'knowledged de justice ob de claim, but de process 
ob collection am wrong ; and fur dat reason I fit rud- 
der den pay it. My dear brudderin, I wants to warn 
you all dat de best plan in life am to settle up on de 
spot, for as long as we owe a cent, though it be a bal- 
ance due on de robbin' ob de hen roost, in de midst 
ob life we are in debt. 



FACTS. 

Facts, though they be melancholy, are better 
known than hidden. 



A RELIABLE PERSON. 

A man who conscientiously thinks for himself can 
be relied upon. 



A DIFFICULT ACT IN THE DRAMA. 
The most difficult act in the drama of life is to play 
financial independence in straitened circumstances. 



THE IDOLS OF A PEOPLE. 

It falls to the lot of few men to become the idol of 
a people, and these most generally have been men 
who wielded the sword. 



UPPER-TEN ANIMALS. 

Fine horses, dogs and eats have their upper-ten 
circle the same as man. These elite animals live 
better than the poor human being. The animal 
kingdom, from man down, is on a level with itself, 
according to circumstances and conditions. We are 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 29 

all animals. The dog's creator is our creator, as he 
is the creator of the sheep and goat. What are we 
here for, and what is it all about ? 



BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH YOUR- 
SELF. 

Man's great misfortune is, that he seeks the ac- 
quaintance of others, and neglects to cultivate knowl- 
edge of himself. 



THE HOMELIEST BIRDS. 
Birds of fine plumage are the homeliest when 
picked. 

MUST KEEP THE ENGAGEMENT. 
Man has an engagement to die, which he cannot 
avoid. 



HARD TIMES TO RAISE MONEY. 

The hardest time to raise money is when a fellow 
is hard up and short of collateral. 



CAN'T PLEASE ALL. 

No one form of government or administration can 
please everybody. It takes God and the devil to cor- 
ral the herd. 



WE WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN. 

We may suffer mental and physical pain and en- 
dure untold hardships, but if we submit our case to 
the mercy of God we will not be forgotten in the end, 



30 BARBV COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

Our sufferings will nurse us to sleep, to wake up in 
splendor, blessed with health and happiness forever. 



AN IDOLIZED CHILD. 

An idolized child dies young, or, if it live to ma- 
turity, is apt to become a source of sorrow to its 
parents. 

COURAGE AND CONVICTION. 

He who has not the courage of his conviction, is fit 
to be convicted. 



THE MOTHER OF ECONOMY. 
Poverty is the mother of economy. People with 
millions have been educated and trained by mis- 
fortune to live and thrive on the sweat of an oil rag. 



SELF-IMPORTANT. 

Self-important people usually waste their life think- 
ing about themselves. 



FEVERISH PROSPERITY. 

Never let prosperity develop into feverish excite- 
ment and blow-hardness. It's bad for the blower. 



THE BLIND SEE. 
A blind man, with only horse sense, can see and 
comprehend more in one minute than a fool with 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. ,31 

good eyesight ever saw or comprehended in a life- 
time. 



DIFFICULT PLANS. 

The most difficult plans to make are those for the 
future. 



WHEN MAN RETROGRADES. 

When man discards all principles of manhood and 
self-respect, that moment he becomes the lowest order 
of animal. 



COMPETITION. 

Competition is two-thirds the life and one-third the 
death of trade, with a like amount of paralysis of the 
trader. 



EXCESSIVE EXPECTANCY. 

Excessive expectancy breeds disappointment, ill 
feeling, sorrow, trouble and unnecessary suffering. 
The best plan is never to count too much on any- 
thing, and thus avoid disappointment, for imagina- 
tion is an invisible insect that inoculates ideas, caus- 
ing them to swell often beyond common sense and 
reason. 



THE POOR DEBTOR. 

It is embarrassing for one who owes money to be 
compelled by circumstances to repeatedly give 
reasons and excuses for not paying, and harder still 



32 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

to make the creditor feel as he does, and so appre- 
ciate his unfortunate position. 



A BOOBY SON. 
A booby son lives off his father's name. 

UNCALLED-FOR LIBERALITY. 

Indiscriminate liberality not only makes man a 
fool but leaves him a pauper and a friendless living 
carcass, a prey to the vultures, trouble and sorrow. 



DOCUMENTARY LOVE. 

Love letters become documentary evidence after 
marriage, proving whether things were what they 
seemed or not. 



THE FAILURE OF EXPEDITIONS. 

The cause of failure, as a rule, with expeditions 
sent out for exploration or other purposes, has been 
internal dissension, and lack of unity and harmony. 



POPULAR GOVERNMENT. 

A popular government fosters patriotism of and 
by the people. A bad government fosters dissen- 
sion, strife and bloodshed. 



THE FATE OF MANY A GENIUS. 
In genius there is more or less an element of sad 
fate. It often happens with men born with remark- 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. J3 

able natural gifts, that they seem unable to control 
them for a definite ambition, and so are continually 
throwing away golden opportunities, which others, of 
less brilliant mind, utilize, to their fame and wealth. 



GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 

The accomplishment of great enterprises is nurtured 
by careful attention to little ones. 



MAN. 

Individually man is a savage. Collectively he is a 
civilian. 



THE TRUE AMERICAN. 

A true American never affects foreign pronuncia- 
tion. 



OPTICAL TRAVELERS. 

Many who travel abroad return home to buy a 
guide book to learn where they have been. They 
see things optically, not mentally. 



LAUGHS. 

A man who laughs a hearty laugh will never lead 
anybody astray. A man who suppresses his laugh- 
ter is full of guile. 



NO WONDER THEY FAILED. 

The firm of Brown & Sykes has failed, and cannot 
pay even their help. Brown played the races while 



34 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

his partner played faro. Small wonder they * ' went 
up." 



BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS. 

Beautiful thoughts, when expressed in appropriate 
words, never die. 



CONTAGION. 

One bad orange in a box will cause all the rest to 
decay. 



WHAT IS A BROKER? 
A broker is the missing link between the buyer and 
seller, borrower and lender. 



WHAT KILLS PEOPLE? 
It is estimated that more people die from the bad 
effects of superfluous habits than from natural 
causes. 



BORN FAILURES. 

Some people waste their whole life fishing in cis- 
terns, so to speak, and wonder why it is they never 
have any bites. 



TEMPTATION AND TRADE. 

Temptation is the incentive of trade and commerce. 
If people were not tempted by profit they would not 
engage in business. No one who engages in business 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 35 

for his health ever lives long. He soon becomes a 
financial corpse. 



OTHER FOLKS' BUSINESS. 

It doesn't pay to go meddling too much with other 
folks' business, for when a fellow pokes his nose in 
somebody else's door, he is likely to get it pinched. 



HARVEST. 

The wheat is in the barn, and the corn is in the shock; 
Tramps are about, and our pantry's without a lock; 
Milk is in the spring-house, and poultry in the yard, 
Meat is in the smoke-house, and a bar'l full of lard. 

The cider's in the cellar, and the preserves in a jar. 
Apple jack is close by, and honey ain't far; 
Jason's sawing on the fiddle, and Alec's gone to see his gal, 
I've got a sweetheart, too, and her name is Sal. 

She's got eyes like diamon's, and a mouth like a trap. 
I'm the favorite with her mother, likewise with her pap. 
The weddin' day's set for the sixteenth of next June — 
I wish the time was shorter, on account of honeymoon. 

Life is what we make it, either good or bad, 

For mother told me so, and so did dad. 

Sally and I will live as two happy people should; 

We wouldn't live different, not if Satan said we could. 



A BAD CHARGE. 



Some people are so heavily charged with the evil 
spirit of distrust, envy and jealousy of others, that 



36 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

they are constantly in hot water, and at war with 
themselves. 



THE DANGEROUS MAN. 
A dangerous man, for a fool, is a thinking man, 
because a fool never thinks. 



LEADING RULERS. 

The four leading rulers of mankind are Intelligence, 
Progress, Christianity, and Industry. 



A CHARM THAT CHARMS. 

The proper charm to wear is a good fat pocket 
book. It will charm friends around you wherever 
you go, but the moment it loses its rotundity, the 
charm is gone and your friends vanish. I'd rather be 
a bob-tailed monkey in the wilds of Borneo than dead 
broke in the heart of civilization. 



GRAVE SIGNS OF MAN'S EXODUS. 

The cemetery reminds us of man's departure from 
this world, which is constantly going on, day and 
night, and which is yet kept up by man's love and 
woman's affection. 



CREATION AND EXTERMINATION. 

The world is one continuous round of creation and 
extermination. God creates man, and man creates 
things, while time keeps up a steady extermination 
of all. Nothing is permanent ; constant change is 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 37 

the rule. We are here to-day and away to-morrow ; 
our stay on earth is oniy temporary, with no fixed 
quitting time. 

A POOR MATCH-MAKER. 
Money is a bad match-maker, for it often leads 
people into marrying a life of unhappiness. 



CICERO'S DREAM. 

The dream of Cicero was that the world might be 
one city, and all men might be citizens of that city. 
It seems to me that Cicero was a little off on his dream 
scheme, for, if all the earth was covered with a city, 
there wouldn't be any place to grow cabbages, pota- 
toes and such like for people to eat. But we could 
raise hogs and beets all the same. Plenty of them are 
growing in the cities now. 



THE TRUE STORY OF THE FLOOD. 

{Ground out on the Philosopher's Mentaiophone.) 

To begin with, the writer desires to introduce to 
the public a new and original phrase — Mentalophone, 
which means the power of thought — the ability to 
study a thing out, to solve problems, etc. For ex- 
ample, I mentalophoned Noah, of Ark fame, in re- 
gard to the flood, what caused it, and all about it, and 
I find that Noah was a menagerien, which means a 
collector of animals, birds, reptiles, etc. He construct- 
ed a ship, placed a fine menagerie aboard, and set sail 
for Soulatonia, a country which at that time lay 
where the Atlantic ocean rolls to-day. At noon of 



38 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOBHY. 

the fourth day out a terrific commotion in the sea was 
observed, as if a tidal wave had struck the ship. 
Sudden darkness appeared and the heavens pre- 
sented a strange sight ; thousands of stars were shoot* 
ing in as many different directions amid hundreds of 
comets and moons. For seventy-two hours this 
phenomena continued, while the terror-stricken ani- 
mals aboard the ship added horror to the scene by 
their pitiful cries. But daylight came to their relief 
at last and all was again calm and peaceful. 

The surface of the water had a muddy appearance, 
but no land was in sight. Carrier pigeons were sent 
out with messages, in the hope of communicating with 
some one on shore, but no response came. Four 
days later land was sighted, and the ship anchored 
near the shore, which was reached in small boats, 
and found to be covered with sea shells, dead fish 
and other such matter as forms the bottom of the 
ocean, but no living thing was to be seen. Finally 
the water began to recede, and Noah felt the earth 
moving, which soon left the ship high and dry upon 
the top of a hill, over which the vessel was anchored, 
and it was then that it dawned upon the first navigator 
and his crew what had happened. The trouble was 
that this little planet of our.s had come into collision 
with its larger brother planet Mars, and the Earth was 
knocked galley west, and its position and surface chang- 
ed. In seeking its equilibrium again, the waters natur- 
ally receded and the dry land became the bottom of the 
sea, while the latter became dry land, which we now 
occupy, and upon which we see to-day marks of the 
collision in the form of petrified fish and other sea life 
on the tops of mountains. Soulatonia, above men- 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 39 

tioned, and which is to-day at the bottom of the Atlan- 
tic, was a grand country, with more than two hun- 
dred millions of inhabitants, principally industrious 
people, with cities, towns, villages, churches, schools, 
manufactories and a fertile agricultural area, over 
which ships are sailing to-day. When Noah realized 
what had happened he set his menagerie at liberty to 
replenish the earth again, while he and his crew 
went to farming. Ships were as common in those days 
as they are to-day, and many vessels other than the 
Ark were saved to the different localities of the 
world, while many were destroyed, with all on board. 
The planet Mars is again coming in close proximity 
to us and another like calamity to the one above 
described is liable to happen in the near future. 



POSITION OF SAYING. 

A man who says a thing should first be in a position 
to know what he says. 



A DESERTER. 

Never desert a friend or companion. All the world 
despises a deserter. 



AN END TO ALL THINGS. 
Never forget the fact that there is an end to all 
things. Sick or well, or in trouble, there is an end to 
it. It may be a long way off, or it may be near, but 
there is an end. Debt seems to hang on to some 
people longer than life. It is bad to die in debt and 



4.0 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

leave one's family poor. The good money some peo- 
ple waste on bad habits would keep an insurance pol- 
icy of thousands of dollars for their families and cred- 
itors at deat'L. Twenty-five cents a day for rum is 
$91.25 a year, which would pay for big insurance. 



DEFINITION OF A WORKING MAN. 
Every man is a laboring man who works for a liv- 
ing, whether he be a coal heaver, clerk, cashier or 
president. He who earns his living, of whatever 
nature, is a working man. 



PLAY FERRET. 
It is often better discretion to ferret a thing out 
than to ask questions. 



REMEMBER THIS TRUTH. 

Retribution is sure to come to him who does 
wrong. 



PRESENT AND FUTURE. 

Let us take care of the present, the future will take 
care of itself. 



INDUSTRY PUNISHED BY FINES. 

If a man builds a house, a factory, or a mill, to-day, 
the law pounces upon him and forces him to pay a 
fine, under penalty of having his property confiscated. 
Hence, industry is classified with crime or punished 
by fines, which political law-makers have capsuled 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 4l 

into a dose which they are. pleased to call taxes. All 
building improvements of whatsoever nature should 
be free of taxation, but the land should be taxed, for 
the reason that it is the improvements which makes 
the land valuable ; therefore the land is indebted to the 
improvements upon it for its rise in value and should 
pay the penalty as an offset. 



FORESIGHT UNDERTAKER. 

The greatest undertaker is he who knows before- 
hand what he undertakes. Some people waste their 
whole life undertaking to do something and never do 
anything. 

EVILS OF FAVORITISM. 

Accidents involving loss of life and property are 
often the result of favoritism, through irresponsible 
and incompetent persons being placed in respon- 
sible positions. 



HOW TO SETTLE GRIEVANCES. 

The way to settle grievances is by arbitration, gov- 
erned by a Christian sense of reason and justice. 
Violence is the work of the evil one, and invariably 
injures the cause of those who engage in it. 



THE DARK AGES HAVE PASSED. 
There are living to-day, in want, in mind and body, 
descendants of heroes upon whom fortunes have been 
wasted in stone images of the dark ages called mon- 
uments. Moral — Build institutions of learning, hospi- 



42 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

tals and homes for the orphaned, the aged and the 
infirm, to the memory of those whom we desire to 
honor after death. The stone- worshipping dark 
ages are among the things of the past. 



AMENDMENTS. 

Be careful in offering amendments ; they don't al- 
ways amend. 



PAST LIFE. 
Great is he whose past life is worthy of the man. 



CONDITION OF THE WORLD. 
The world is all right ; no human being can make a 
better one. It's mankind that is making all the fuss 
and trouble. 



COMPARISON OF ANIMALS. 

The difficulty with humanity is that we are human 
beings. If we were domestic animals, God would 
know just what to expect of us and what to depend 
upon. 



HOW TO SOLVE THE LABOR QUESTION. 
In view of the fact that there is more labor than 
there is demand for, it seems to me that relief of en- 
forced idleness, with consequent hunger, can be 
found in making a day's labor six hours, thus 
every one would be employed, for the reason that 
when one set had finished its time the second relief 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 43 

would take hold, and thus the two would work twelve 
hours per day and there would be no occasion for any 
one to be idle or without money. Do not reduce the 
price of labor, but raise the price of its products, so 
that the laborer may receive his rightful portion of 
the bread which he earns by the sweat of his brow. 
Times are never so good as when everything is pro- 
portionately high and all hands industriously employ- 
ed, earning good salaries and keeping the money in 
circulation. When bacon was twenty cents a pound 
a working man had forty cents to pay for it, but to-day 
it is worth less than ten cents and he hasn't more 
than the price of half a pound. The vital point is 
the money to pay for a thing — that is the question, 
not the price. 



THE POWER OF KNOWING. 
There is as much in knowing how not to do wrong 
as there is in knowing how to do right. 



PEDIGREE. 

The ancestors of domestic animals are often more 
respectable than those of kings. 



STRING BEAN CHARITY. 

When a person gives you a complimentary ticket or 
invitation to an entertainment, and expects you to 
pay for it, by extortionate hat check charges, that is 
string bean charity, tied with lucre cord. True 
charity knows no half-way hitching post. If a per- 



44 BARBY COEY's PHILOSOPHY; 

son cannot give a thing outright the better plan is 
not to give anything and thus avoid embarrassment 
and apparent deception. 



AN EVERY-DAY BUSINESS ERROR. 
Scarce a day goes by but some one or other lose 
their money or something on which another has 
grown rich. Moral — What will cure some people 
will kill others. Be careful of your investments. A 
dollar in your own pocket is worth more to you than 
a million in somebody else's. 



PROTECT THE EAGLE. 

There should be a codicil added to our game laws 
for the protection of the American eagle, else the 
national emblem of our country will soon be extinct. 



TAILOR MADE. 

The material worth of tailor-made people is less 
than their dress. 



TRUE MEASURE OF VALUE. 

It is truly a valuable thing that is worth the money 
given in exchange for it. 



THE LAND QUESTION. 
No one should be permitted to own more than 
twenty acres of land, which they do not directly 
occupy, cultivate or utilize in some practical way. 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 45 

There should be a national law against buying and 
holding land for speculative purposes alone. All 
lands thus held should be appraised by the govern- 
ment, and taken and paid for, and then parcelled out 
to honest and industrious citizens, to settle upon and 
cultivate. God's footstool should not be made the 
prey of gamblers and merciless money sharps. 
Down with individual trusts. 



THE DEVIL'S ASSAYER. 

Mankind, by free will and act, makes strong drink 
the devil's assayer for developing fools, crime and 
criminals. 

AFFINITY AND ALIMONY. 

It is a common occurrence for affinity to ripen into 
alimony, lawyers' fees and a few more things equally 
as strange. 



EVILS OF A RAMBLING MIND. 

If people would stop rambling in their minds about 
making money and utilize their brains thinking out 
the problem, and go at it, they would soon have cash 
in their pockets. 



PROCLIVITIES. 

Whatever an American citizen's proclivities may 
be, whether Southern, Northern, Eastern, or West- 
ern, is of no account to the true American. We 
are all brothers and sisters of the one and the same 



46 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

glorious Union, over which the most beautiful flag 
under the canopy of heaven floats in this air of life, 
liberty and freedom. Once American always Ameri- 
can. 



A LOGICAL VIEW OF COVETOUSNESS. 

We could do without seventy-five per cent of what 
we crave for in this world and still have plenty of the 
substantials of life left. It is man's superfluous de- 
sires that keeps him in trouble and want. 



RESPONSIBILITY OF BAD GOVERN- 
MENT. 

The responsibility for bad government lies with 
those who fail to use the power they possess to change 



it 



POINTS ON FISHING. 

The catchy point in fishing is the end of a well- 
baited hook, lined out in waters containing biting 
fish, and a poor human at the other end with a full 
supply of patience. 



MORE THAN ANARCHY. 
Mob violence is even worse than Anarchy. 



A FOOLISH MOVE. 
When a man living in the country accumulates a 
fortune by years of toil and hardships, or strikes it 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 47 

suddenly rich in mining or otherwise, and moves into 
the city, he usually lives just long enough to regret 
the move, and in many instances dies poor and broken- 
hearted. 



CAPITAL IS FREE. 
Taxation, whether in the form of a tariff, an income 
tax, internal revenue, or otherwise, is paid by the con- 
sumer. Capital never pays a cent of tax ; though it 
may be taxed, it will in some way make the public 
foot the bill. Money is the modern dictator. 



A HIGH-PRICED COMMODITY. 

The most expensive thing known is vanity. It an- 
nually costs millions of dollars and thousands of lives, 
and leaves countless numbers of sick, wounded and 
impoverished in its wake. 



HOW THE HUMAN FAMILY UTILIZES 
ITSELF. 

The trend of the thought of mankind is — what use 
one can make of another in a moneyed sense? The 
masses are as fossilized domestic animals, thrust aside 
as they become old. Moral — Guard well thy ever- 
faithful friends, the dollars. 



COULDN'T MISTAKE THAT GRAVE. 
A political leader in our town, by the name of 
Strange, died the other day, and on his tombstone 



48 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

was written the epitaph : ' ■ Here lies the body of an 
honest politician. Everyone will know that is — 
Strange." 



DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE FIGHT- 
ING FOR. 

In war, not one soldier in ten on either side knows 
really what he is fighting for, nor what it is all 
about. 



DIFFERENCE IN FOOLS. 

The actor on the stage who plays the fool is a per- 
son of intelligence, who mimes for money, but the 
one in the audience who annoys others by loud talking 
acts the fool for want of sense. 



EAGERNESS. 
Only ten per cent, of eagerness is what it seems. 
The other ninety is disappointment. Never be too 
eager to say or to go do a thing without first throw- 
ing the search-light of discretion upon it. 



PAN-AMERICAN DOLLAR. 
The life-blood of trade and one of the greatest 
aids toward the commercial unity of Canada, the 
United States, Mexico, Central and the South 
American Republics, lies in a Pan-American Dollar, 
good for its face value anywhere on the American 
Continent, from Alaska to Cape Horn. This money 
should be issued in two languages, namely : English 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 49 

on one side and Spanish on the other. Silver should 
be the basis of the circulating medium of trade, and 
if the outside world doesn't choose to accept it, they 
don't have to. The American Continent is liberal in 
her views, and "all to their liking," is her platform. 
"Most respectfully yours, and so forth." The 
republics south of the United States are silver produc- 
ing countries and their inhabitants are Americans, all 
the same, and their money is silver. There is no 
Christian reason why the bulldozing, overbearing, 
dictatorial, so-called gold nations of Europe should, 
by the inhuman power of might, dictate the value of 
the American Continent dollar. Silver is the product 
of God, our Heavenly Father, as much as gold, and 
more in fact, for the reason that there is more of it. 
The American republics can and should stand by one 
another. 



OPPORTUNITIES. 

Our friend, the Devil, keeps mankind well supplied 
with alluring opportunities to do wrong, and many 
willingly embrace the opportunity, knowing it to be 
wrong. 

BLESSINGS IN ADAPTABILITY. 
Success and contentment of mankind and commu- 
nities lies in adapting themselves to. circumstances. 



ORIGIN OF STONE BUILDINGS. 

In the early ages of man, the first step toward the 
erection of stone buildings, was the mud hut, from 



50 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

which the magnificent structures of stone and marble 
of to-day date their origin. The first to live in stone 
houses were the cliff-dwellers, whose houses were 
constructed by God, and were fire-proof, which is 
more than can be said of those of modern architec- 
ture. 



WHAT ARE EXCHANGES? 

Licensed gambling places, where one is privileged 
to sell something he doesn't own and where he finds 
plenty of fools ready to buy it. 



ORIGIN OF VALUES. 

It is only when two or more people want a certain 
thing that that thing becomes valuable. All the gold 
in the world wouldn't be worth a tinker's dam if only 
one person wanted it. 



SELF-DESERTED. 

The spirit of greed, vanity and speculation often 
causes those who are honored and respected to for- 
sake their good name and stoop to forgery, or sharp 
practice, with, in many instances, a prison cell in ex- 
change for a happy home. 



THE HEART AND BRAIN. 
Man's heart is the organ of the circulation of the 
blood. Man's brain is the seat of the power of 
thought and conscience, wherein originates his words 
and acts, good or bad. The heart is not responsible 
for man's morality or immorality ; that is the work of 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 5 1 

the brain. A murderer may have as good a heart as 
a saint, but a bad brain, which prompts him to com- 
mit crime. It is a misapplication to say that a person 
is good or bad-hearted, for, in point of fact, all 
human beings are good-hearted so far as the heart is 
concerned. The brain germinates good or evil 
thoughts and acts, not the heart. Instead of saying 
a person 1 "s good-hearted we should say, he is con- 
scientiously good or bad, as the case may be. 



TESTIMONIALS AND MYTHOLOGY. 

Letters of recommendation are only too often 
mythical in spirit, given to please others, and to get 
rid of them. 



DO RIGHT OR DO NOTHING. 

If a thing is done wrong, it is far better that it had 
not been done at all. 



THE RUSH. 

There is no apparent rush among mankind to get 
to heaven, but there are millions daily rushing into 
hell on earth. 



OUR MODERN SOCIAL SYSTEM. 

Men and women of the highest rank of society, 
down to the lowest depths of the most degraded 
criminal, are the legitimate offspring of our modern 
social system. A minister of the gospel will marry a 
couple of criminals as quick as a couple of saints. 



52 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

Hence the process of peopling the world with devils 
and Christians goes on, ad infinitum. The remedy 
for the evil bide of our social system lies in discontinu- 
ing the propagation of evil plants from the garden of 
manhood. 



QUAUHQUECHOTL. 
The term •■ quauhquechotl " is of ancient Yucatan 
Indian origin, and means a person who tears down 
but never builds up. We have many quauhquechotls 
among us to-day, who are ever ready to cry down the 
honest endeavors of others, but never advance 
anything toward originality or progress themselves, 



TASTE VERSES FASHION. 

The most fashionable thing to do or to wear is not 
always the most sensible or tasty. 



MAN A RESERVOIR OF ANIMAL NA- 
TURE. 

There is centered in man and woman every kind of 
nature, including also that of wild animals of the 
forest and beasts of the field, the jackass not ex- 
cepted; anyone of which is liable to develop any 
moment under the slightest provocation. 



REFERENCE. 

If a human being in want applies for a position to en- 
able him to earn bread, he is required to give refer- 
ence and proof of his character, and often bonds as a 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 53 

security to guarantee his honesty before he is accept- 
ed. But if a dog is wanted, no reference or bond 
is required ; besides, the dog is fed and housed free of 
cost ; nature furnishes it with a new suit of fur cloth- 
ing annually and all the work that is expected of it is 
to live in luxury and enjoyment. Such is the condi- 
tion of modern society. Domestic animals are looked 
upon with higher favor than human beings, and, to 
tell the truth, they are, as a rule, more reliable. 



NOT ALL WRONG. 
Individual instances of wrong-doingisno indication 
that a whole community is wrong. 



HE'LL MAKE A GOOD CANNER. 
When buyers for beef-canning establishments, out 
looking up stock, come across an old bull or steer, 
half dead with Texas fever, they will buy it at 
about one-third the regular price, and exclaim, « ■ Oh, 
he'll make a good canner ! " meaning by that that the 
diseased animal is good enough to be tinned up for 
man. No wonder the doctors keep busy. 



AVOID EVIL INFLUENCES. 

Influence, in the magnetic sense, may be described 
as the invisible power of one person over another. 
There are two kinds, good and bad. Good influence 
is what progress and practical Christianity relies 
upon to cultivate the young generation to succeed 
the old, which is passing from this world into the 



54 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

next. Bad influence is the power of Satan, whose 
aim is to tear down, destroy and inflict suffering 
upon humanity by influencing innocent people to 
disobey the dictates of their conscience. 



THE ONLY CORRECT "STILL." 

Instill into the minds of children the value of 
money and the blessings of economy. 



GREAT MEN AND WOMEN. 

Words and acts of great men and women live after 
them and re-echo down the endless corridors of time, 
through which generation after generation pass. 



THE LAND OF THE FLEA AND THE 
HOME OF THE SLAVE. 

The above heading covers a Spanish colony in the 
West Indies, known as Cuba. Area, 43,220 square 
miles; population, 1,522,984, including monkeys, 
parrots, half-starved dogs and stray cats. Thirty- 
three per cent, is enfranchised slaves, fleas, laziness, 
filth, narrow streets, ignorance, offensive smells, 
pest-holes for breeding disease, and a disgrace to 
civilization and Christianity. The balance consists 
in the name of Cuba, the length of which is 759 miles, 
and varies in width from 23 to 137 miles, and, be- 
ing an island, is naturally surrounded by water. 
The surface of this island is broken by a mountain 
chain running through its center from east to west. 
Pico de Tarquino, 7,667 feet high, is the highest 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 5$ 

peak. Over two hundred rivers exist on the island, 
most of which are only navigable for fallen Autumn 
leaves. The river Canto is deep enough to float a 
pretext for Uncle Sam to buy the island some day, 
and then bury it six feet deep in chloride of 
lime, and let it stay there for six months, and 
then dig it up, wash and scrub it well with cast-steel 
soap, and hang it out in the sunshine of a Christian 
nation to dry. Gold, copper, iron, coal, mahogany, 
rosewood, ebony, cedar, tobacco, sugar, coffee, 
cotton, cocoanuts, indigo and a great variety of 
trophical fruits are among the productions of this 
island, which only needs practical Christianity to 
develop it. Total value of agricultural products, 
over $90,000,000 annually. 



WHERE THE DIFFERENCE IN MAN IS. 

The difference in man is not in his physical form 
but in his brain, intellect and disposition. 



WHERE MAN IS USEFUL. 
There are lots of uses to which man can be put. 
One is, that he spares woman the humiliation of 
being an old maid. 



TIME'S RELENTLESS SCYTHE. 
The only certainty of man's stay on earth is that 
he is born to die, and he does not know when. 
Strong men are falling on every hand. The destroy- 
er, Time, knows neither age, rank or position. No 
promise of immunity from his relentless scythe 



56 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

remains. Even to the fairest flower or the sturdiest 
tree, all, sooner or later, go down before his unspar- 
ing hand 



DOING AS YOU PLEASE. 
Only one person in twenty is capable of doing as 
he pleases and be successful at it. 



TRUTH IS TERSE. 

If man spoke truth only, there would be less than 
seven per cent, of the present amount of talking 
necessary. 



A POOR SIGN. 

A man who makes a display of his cash in pub- 
lic is a poor man ; like a turtle, all he has is on his 
back. 



LOVE OF LOCALITY. 

Opinions of locality are regulated and formed 
according to success or failure. If a person, for in- 
stance, goes to Asia and engages in business and is 
successful, he thinks there is no place like Asia. 
If another goes there and loses everything, his 
opinion of Asia wouldn't strike a match. 



ARAB SLAVE-TRADERS. 

The cruel Arab slave-traders used to mark their 
slaves by cutting a gash in the cheek. Modern 
society slave-traders mark young girls from fifteen 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. $7 

to eighteen years old, by gashing their cheeks and 
butchering out part of the flesh, leaving ugly wounds 
which they nickname dimples. * ' History do repeat 
itself." Dimples are born and not made. 



HIGH STRUNG. 

Temper is all right in tools and such like, but a 
high-sirung person is never in tune. They are al- 
ways in discord with themselves and everybody else 
and not in harmony with anything. There are cases 
where highly-strung persons are in harmony with 
good government and the general welfare of the 
public. For instance, when highwaymen, train 
robbers, outragers and dynamiters are highly-strung, 
law-abiding Christians say, "Amen," and the quicker 
the better. 



WIND-UP OF VANITY. 
Vainglory usually finds its way into a pawnshop 
or an auction room. 



A TEMPERANCE LESSON. 

A shark recently caught m the bay of Yucatan had 
a temperance badge in its stomach. *The thing had 
reformed just in time to die. Drunkards, take warn- 
ing from this, and swallow a temperance badge 
early. 



PRACTICAL SCIENTISTS. 

The cowboys of science have lassoed, corraled, 
tamed and broken into harness, for domestic and 



58 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

commercial purposes, the wild element electricity, 
and made it a useful servant of man. This new help 
is making such rapid strides that it is only a question 
of time when steam and horse power will be out of a 
job. 



WE'RE ALL IN THE WOODS. 

Man born of woman is but a few days a boy, and 
the balance of the time he is wandering about in the 
woods, until he dies. With woman it is about the 
same thing, with the exception that she is born of 
herself, and for a few days is herself, and the rest of 
the time she is in the woods, too, wandering along with 
man, until at length she dies also. 



THE LIGHT OF THOUGHT. 

Thought and reason is the great mental light which 
God gave man as a safeguard to guide him through 
life. 



ANCIENT IRISH MODE OF FISHING. 
In times gone by people in Ireland trained otters 
to catch fish and bring them ashore, bedad ! 



JUST TO HAVE IT SAID. 
There are people who do things for no other 
purpose than to have it said they did so and so. 
They will sacrifice every cent, and go in debt, to get 
a certain position, to be in a certain place, or to be 
seen in company with this one or the other, or in 
some particular style of dress, jewelry, or to get con- 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 59 

spicuously into print,being constantly on the hunt after 
some phantom or other to worship, just to haye it said. 
They will go into some enterprise or other, and lose 
all their money to appear big, just to have it said. 
They will become members of this, that, or the other 
thing, just to have it said. They never see real life, 
nor are they actuated by meritorious aims, but go 
through life with no other object than to appear big 
in the estimation of those who don't give them a 
moment's thought. 



MINSTRELS COME AGAIN NO MORE. 

The good old-time negro minstrel, the big shoe, 
the corn and cotton-field darkey, with his picturesque 
costume, and his sweet and enjoyable melodies, has 
gone, to come again no more. The dude minstrel, 
with his Sir Walter Raleigh get-up, is a poor 
substitute. 



A FOOL'S ARGUMENT. 

A fool's argument is that it is nobody else's business 
if he chooses to go wrong. 



WHAT FRETS ARE GOOD FOR. 

Frets are only good on banjo necks and guitars. 
When people fret, they are inharmonious to them- 
selves and a discord to others. 



THEY DID YOU NO HARM. 
Don't go back on a fellow that never harmed you, 
just because some friend of yours happens not 



60 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

to like him, for if your friend is any good at all 
he must have some enemies. Any body who ever 
amounted to much in this world has enemies. That 
person who goes about making enemies to please 
that other person, witt soon make enemies of his 
friends. 



WH® ARE "THEY?" 
That common expression, * « They say so, " is only a 
myth. A ship was lost and all on board perished, 
"they say." He is worth a million, "they say." She 
is engaged to so and so, " they say." He was seen 
drunk last night, • ' they say. " And thus the mischiev- 
ous myth sails, leaving a burning wake. 



LUCK VERSUS PLUCK & CO. 
Luck is a fool. Pluck, Industry and Watch, as 
well as Pray, are harbingers of all things great and 
good. Luck is one of his Satanic Majesty's finest 
baits to catch fools and suckers with. 



A SHARP BUYER. 

When I was a boy, a sharp buyer was considered a 
man who bought razors. But now-a-days a man is 
considered sharp who can buy anything there is 
money in for the buyer. 



PEACE AND CIVILIZATION. 
Peace is not always an indication of civilization. 
A criminal may be locked up, and for the time being 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 6l 

be peaceable, yet not a civilian any more than a sav- 
age beast caged up, where it can do no harm. The 
most peaceable and harmless criminal is a dead one. 



LET US ANNEX CANADA. 
Colonies are not fit for anything but to get rid 
of surplus population. They add nothing to the 
wealth and strength of their mother country ; on the 
contrary, they are constantly getting into mischief 
and trouble with other countries and appealing to 
their parents for protection, which often results in 
war and bloodshed. 



THE DIFFERENCE IN SINNERS. 

The man who sins openly and above board is more 
to be trusted than he who pretends to be so pious 
that sugar wouldn't melt in his mouth, but who, on a 
sharp business drive, will swallow a whole railroad, 
along with the rolling stock. 



CHICAGO AND CINCINNATI GIVES UP. 

The valley of Toluca is celebrated for its fat hogs, 
of a peculiar class. These " larders, " as the natives 
term them, are composed principally of bone and fat, 
with only five per cent. meat. They weigh from five 
to eight hundred pounds, and you might drive a rail- 
road spike in the back of one of them without any 
evidence of feeling on the part of his hogship, so 
thick is the fat. A better idea can be formed of just 
how fat these Mexican hogs are when it is said, that 



62 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

while they are lying down, rats gnaw round holes 
through their hide and crawl inside and live there, 
off the fat, without the hog knowing anything about 
it. How is this, Chicago and Cincinnati? You and 
Armour should take off your hats to Mexico. 



APPLYING TO STRANGERS FOR FAVORS. 

You often hear it said if a person wants a favor, it 
is better to go among strangers than among their 
acquaintances. The chances are that if the strangers 
knew as much about them as their acquaintances 
they wouldn't fare any better. It is a good thing for 
the human family that they are not all too intimate- 
ly acquainted. 



THE CAMPAIGN LIAR. 
A campaign liar is a political merchant who deals 
in words of all sizes, styles and qualities, imported 
from far and near, but all good for nothing, which 
he tries to palm off on the public at face value. Few 
get rich at it, while some make a living and the rest 
get left. 



HUMAN WEEVILS IN THE FLOUR OF 
THE FAMILY. 
Unfortunately for the peace of society, there is 
everywhere a class of impertinent busybodies, who 
make it their special business to pry into the domes- 
tic affairs of their neighbors, and as curiosity must be 
gratified at any expense to private character, and 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 63 

such persons always like to believe in and retail the 
worst, the secrets of no family are exempt from their 
malignant intrusion. They are disturbers of the 
peace of society, whom the law seldom punishes, 
although they perpetrate more crimes than highway- 
men and assassins. They are burglars of the do- 
mestic tranquility of families,, robbers of others' good 
name, and assassins of the character of the inno- 
cent. 



NEVER GET SCARED. 

The worst faculty any one can be afflicted with is 
the faculty of getting scared. A person under the 
influence of scare is perfectly helpless and a ready 
prey to his opponent. Even if one is in the wrong 
it only aggravates one's case to scare too readily, for 
that is the time one needs the free use of his facul- 
ties and sometimes his legs. 



WHAT IS MEANT BY GOD'S COUNTRY. 

Seek and ye shall find. For the information of 
those who are ignorant of the location of God's 
country, I will enlighten them by saying that, while 
the Garden of Eden was being transported to Heaven 
it came into contact with a malevolent planet, and a big 
hunk of the former broke away and fell. For ages after 
this collision that part of Eden which broke away was 
lost so completely that not a trace of it could be found, 
and finally the search was given up, and all hope aban- 
doned of ever seeing the lost land again. After the 
lapse of many thousands of years, search was resum- 



64 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

ed, and the Lord started a man by the name of 
Columbus to look for the treasure, and after months 
of search he at last discovered it, located in latitude 
30 degrees north, bounded on the east by the Atlantic 
ocean, on the west by the Pacific, on the north by 
the St. Lawrence, and on the south by Rio Grande, 
with a tendency to fence in as far as Cape Horn in 
course of time. 



"TALK IS CHEAP, BUT MONEY BUYS 
LAND." 

Only one per cent, of everything said materializes. 
If people would only talk less and materialize more 
there would not be so much suffering in the world. 
Times would be better, money would be more plenti- 
ful and easier to get. Talk is cheap ; that's the reason 
so many people take stock in it. 



INDUSTRIOUSLY WRONG. 

Industry is capable of being perverted — for in- 
stance, a person may be industriously engaged in 
robbing a safe or buncoing people out of their money 
by false representation, counterfeiting, forging, etc. 
Industry has its misusages and don't you forget it. 



SETTLED FOR LIFE. 

It is a mistake to suppose, when we get married 
and go to housekeeping, that we have really settled 
4own. Just so long as we live we are unsettled, no 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 65 

matter whether we domicile in palaces or in huts. 
We are never settled down for life until we are set- 
tled down in death. 



MOUTH WISDOM. 
It is a wise person who knows when to open his 
mouth and when to keep it shut. People's mouths 
get them into more trouble than the lack of sense. 
A fool can corner his own ignorance and appear wise 
by keeping the gap under his nose tight shut. 



THE DEMAND GREATER THAN THE 
SUPPLY. 

Never in the history of the world was the supply 
of charity greater than the consumption. 



EVERYBODY NOT CONSTITUTED 
ALIKE. 
Some are born to become heads of business and 
corporations, others to be superintendents, and 
others yet to construct according to plans and in- 
structions. 



MAKING GODS WHILE YOU WAIT. 
In Mexico, Egypt, and far-away India, the natives 
make ancient gods to order for tourists, while they 
wait. These gentlemen of leisure don't know any bet- 
ter than to take their newly made old relics back home 
to America and ornament their parlors with fakes, 



66 . BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

But we needn't talk. Why, up in New England the 
Yankees will make anything from a watch to a hair 
trunk as old as Methuselah, if you pay enough for it. 
It's business, you know. 



PASSION'S TRAIN. 
Passion destroys peace, divides families, separates 
friends, brings on wars, death and destruction, fol- 
lowed by new industries, such as lawsuits, crutch 
and artificial limb factories, grave-stones and monu- 
ments, along with increased taxation to pay the war 
debt and pensions. 



SETTLING DAY. 

If everybody's debts were paid to-day, some high 
mountains would be holes in the ground. 



THE KEY TO PRODUCTION. 

Effort is the key which unlocks the way to produc- 
tion and success. A person without a bunch of 
effort keys in his makeup is likely to be locked out in 
the cold. 



EDUCATED FROGS. 

Nowhere in the world — not even in France— can 
be found more highly-cultured frogs than in Guate- 
mala. There these amphibians can jump at a con- 
clusion quicker than a French dancing master. I 
met one of these frogs the other day, in a saw mill, 
and it concluded to tackle the saw in motion, just tg 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 6j 

see how the old thing would work. It jumped at the 
conclusion, and the way warts and frogs' legs flew 
would make the hair stand on the head of a navigator. 
Truly, over-indulgence in anything has its evil effects, 
as was the case with this poor unfortunate Guate- 
malian ally of the French. It came, it saw, and, in 
turn, was sawed. Too much bravery and not enough 
judgment is the way with some men and women in 
this world, who think they know it all and nobody 
else knows anything. Such people never amount to 
anything till they have run into a circular saw a few 
times, and have the warts knocked off them. 



SUDDEN SUCCESS. 
Few people, who jump into success, ever maintain 
their fame. Four out of five disappear into the 
depths of forgetfulness. 



UNAPPRECIATED HONESTY. 
Honesty is not always appreciated; yet that 
shouldn't deter us from being honest, for without 
honesty there is no real happiness. 



THE AMERICAN WOMAN. 
The woman of to-day is rapidly advancing to a 
higher sphere, through her own energy and self- 
reliance. She is not ashamed of work, or to know how 
to cook, make her own clothes and attend to business. 
This is especially true of the women of America, while 
her sisters of Spanish America still adhere to the 



68 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

empty idea that all they are fit for is to be idolized 
by men, attend to social duties, drive in the parks 
and be followed everywhere they go by a flock of ser- 
vants, with bundles, baskets and packages filled with 
superfluous matter. Ability is not considered a mat- 
ter of sex by an American woman, for the reason 
that she has practically demonstrated that her powers 
of earning a living and getting along in the world are 
about equal to that of her brother. 



BURNING A WOMAN AT THE STAKE. 
At a public dinner in New York city, not long ago, a 
noted speaker, referring to the Puritans as Yankees, 
made the assertion that they burned alive, at the 
stake, one Mrs. Rebecca Norse, at Salem, for witch- 
craft, but 260 years afterwards their descendants 
erected a monument to her memory. These Puritans, 
he said, could always be relied upon to compensate 
anyone they had wronged, if you give them plenty 
of time ! 



EVILS OF INCUMBRANCE. 

The evil of having anything is that you are liable 
to lose it. People suffer more from the loss of a 
thing than they did for the need of it. 



WHY DON'T THEY DO SO NOW? 

In olden times it was the custom of kings and 

queens to put their architects to death after they had 

completed their jobs. The Queen of Sheep-shed 

built her palace over the grave of one of these dis- 



BARSY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 69 

patched architects, but she did it most artistically 
and tenderly. In one corner of the palace, her 
queenship erected a church, with a high steeple, and, 
when the entire work was completed she gave a 
grand reception, which was attended by the "four 
hundred" class of that day, and at twelve o'clock 
midnight, while the ball was in full blast, she per- 
suaded Mr. Architect to climb to the top of the steeple, 
and jump off, dashing himself to pieces on the side- 
walk below. His heart, which remained uninjured, 
was gouged out by the Court Surgeon, and preserv- 
ed in a jar, that had the place of honor on the mantel 
in the drawing room of the palace. The Queen of 
Sheep-shed was a half sister to the Queen of She-ba. 



DANGEROUS TO BE SAFE. 

With palace cars running a mile a minute now-a 
days, it's dangerous to be safe. Pullman, himself, 
doesn't patronize the palace car now. 



FULLY EQUIPPED. 

One needs an armor-plated constitution and a 
cannon-ized spirit to laugh off the troubles encoun- 
tered in the battle of life. 



A USEFUL PARLEZ-VOUS. 

The best linguist to travel with is a letter of credit. 
A deaf, • dumb and blind person can travel on that, 
where a professor of languages wouldn't be in it. 



JO BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

Moral— Take special care of your money, if you 
ever expect to get anywhere or see anything in the 
world, and be in it, with the procession. 



THE STAND AGAINST IGNORANCE. 
The greatest stand against ignorance is the news 



stand. 



CURE FOR SEA SICKNESS. 
The most reliable cure for this dread disease is to 
land. 



DOC. WENT ALSO. 
It used to be the custom among the Indians that 
when a doctor lost his patient, " he went with him." 



GREAT CIVILIZERS. 

The printing press, the railroad, the steamship' 
the telegraph and kerosene oil have done more to 
civilize man than all the religion since or before the 
flood. 



COMFORT AND PLEASURE. 

Comfort and pleasure r'on't necessarily go to- 
gether. A man may be in prison, and have com- 
fortable quarters there, and all the good living 
money can buy, yet there is no pleasure in it. Many a 
person worth millions, and in poor health, would gladly 
make an even exchange for the life of a healthy hod 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 7* 

carrier. Some have money and the means of com- 
fort, but are too stingy or ignorant to enjoy it, while 
those who think they know how to get the best that 
can be had out of wealth, if they had it, never get a 
chance at it. 



TOO BUSY. 
Some people are so busy that they apparently 
will never have time to go to their own funeral, 
but they'll get there just the same. 



PROFESSION AND OCCUPATION. 

Most people are one thing by profession and some- 
thing else by occupation. 



DAVE'S POOR LUCK. 
Dave Ramsey is in a bad streak of luck. Every- 
body that owes him money is dying off, while all 
his creditors are enjoying undisturbed health. 



MAN'S BEGINNING. 
Man, born helpless, availed himself of his instincts. I 
and used his imitative powers, by following the ex- 
ample of other animals, who seek asylum in caves. 
Born with a naked skin, he early envied his four-foot- 
ed companions, and found it convenient to clothe him- 
self in their skins. By gentle transition, he came to 
the surface, then lived above ground, and so be- 
came an architect. By a crude combining of fibrous 
materials he became a full-fledged manufacturer, 



72 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

and these forward steps led him to adopt different 
styles of housing and clothing. Then came the 
tailor-man, whose victims we all are to-day. 



TO BOYS OF FIFTEEN. 
Dear boys, here is a piece of good advice : Keep 
out of debt, never smoke cigarettes, and don't drink 
liquor any oftener than you would castor oil. Find 
out what you are best fitted for, stick to it and 
make a success of what you undertake. Don't run 
from one thing to another, earn money by honest 
labor, and never engage in gambling. 



ONE MORE MEANS ONE LESS. 

One day more of life makes our stay one day less 
on earth. 



NO INDIVIDUAL BIRTHDAYS. 

Our birthdays are shared by others, of every na- 
tionality, shade and color. Don't think you have a 
birthday all to yourself, for many thousands of others, 
too, were ushered 'into life on what you regard as 
your special natal day. 



WE FORGET TO PROFIT BY EXPERI- 
ENCE. 

Much of man's suffering comes from the fact that 
he fails to profit by his experience. If he makes a 
mistake in business or every-day life he soon forgets 
it and the first thing he knows he runs up against 



barbv coey's philosophy. 73 

the same old mistake. If he goes to a gambling 
place, and loses his money, he will allow his exper- 
ience to be crowded out of his mind by a false idea 
that he can buck the tiger again and win it all back, 
and, like a lunatic, loses more. If he drinks to ex- 
cess, and it makes him sick, as soon as he gets over 
it he goes back and poisons himself over again. If 
he talks too much, tells his affairs to everybody and 
gets into trouble, just as soon as it is over he will 
forget it and repeat the dose. If he sees the great 
value of money, and how people worship him if he 
has it, and how little they care for him when he is 
broke, he will forget it, and the next time he gets 
money, will waste it as of yore. If he sees the folly of 
bad habits eating away and destroying his health 
and character, he fails to profit by it, but keeps 
right on until premature death puts an end to all. 



THE IRON MARCH OF PROGRESS. 

The discovery of gold and silver made men gam- 
blers and women reckless, but the discovery of iron 
marked the beginning of progress, and iron is to-day 
the leading element of civilization. 



SAWBILL DLJCKS. 
While traveling in Patagonia, I came across an 
Antithroduxvomica, which means nothing new under 
the sun, only something newly discovered, which, 
in this case, turned out to be a sawbill duck, a cross 
between a Muscovy duck and sawfish, hatched out 
by setting the duck on sawfish eggs. The peculiarity 



74 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

of the sawbill duck is that its bill is about the length 
and width of an ordinary hand saw, and tapering to 
a sharp point, with teeth on either edge. I captured 
the one referred to, and intended to take it to the 
Smithsonian Institute, in Washington, but, unfortun- 
ately, we lodged it in a house built of logs, and that 
night it sawed its way out to liberty, and we never 
saw it again. 



NOT FOR THAT PURPOSE. 

No man or woman was ever worth suiciding for — 
we weren't created for that purpose. 



INFLUENCE OF IMAGINATION. 
If a person is thought to have money, he passes as 
a wealthy man, just the same as if he really had it. 
A good principle in life is to pay for what you get and 
give the go-by to what you cannot pay for. A man 
may consider himself well off to-day who is able to 
live fairly well and keep out of debt. 



IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING. 

Truthfulness, like pure gold, often meets with 
the misfortune of falling into the hands of dishonest 
people, who use it for immoral purposes. 



LEAD THEM NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 

Every day in the year sensible-looking and good- 
looking ladies may be seen going through crowded 



B. "BY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 75 

streets, with their pocket-books in their outstretched 
hands, in full view of everybody, and tempting the 
evil-minded to do wrong. Our prisons are always 
fairly well supplied with criminals of the pocket- 
book snatching element. The place for a pocket- 
book, when not in use, is deep down in the pocket, 
where it belongs. 



IF THEY WERE WOMEN. 
Many men have given as many different opinions 
as to what they would do if they were women. For 
my part, if I were a woman, I would just be a woman, 
the same as any other woman is a woman. 



UNSELFISHNESS A JEWEL. 
Anyone who is unselfish and charitable is a jewel 
in the human family. 



DO WE NEED A WAR. 

Almost all the great army and navy officers of war 
record have passed away, and unless a war springs 
up soon, we won't have a corporal left. We have 
plenty of good fighting stock on hand, ' ' spilin' for a 
muss " to develop a new crop of soldiers, the like of 
which the world never saw. 



THE FUTURE OF ELECTRICITY. 

The only people who know anything about the 
future of electricity are those who have been elec- 
trocuted. But as only a favored few have lighted out 



?6 6AR6V Coey's philosophy. 

that way, and as these few were in such a hurry that 
they forgot to leave their address, in reality we have 
no past masters of future electricity living among us. 
No doubt there are many candidates for this office, 
and who will get there by and by. 



WORK HARD AND GET IT. 
Wisdom is acquired mainly through hard work, 
study and experience — we aren't all born philoso- 
phers. 



"GOD BLESS THE MAN WHO FIRST IN- 
VENTED SLEEP." 

The greatest earthly luxury is peaceful sleep, and 
it isn't always those in high places who enjoy 
this blessing. 



LOOK OUT FOR YOUR IRONS. 

The man with many irons in the fire usually gets 
blistered, and may be considered lucky if he escapes a 
scorching of his reputation. 



HER MOTHER'S GRAVE. 

She was but a little lame Indian girl, with melting 
eyes and a look of sorrow and suffering. Her rag- 
ged dress told of her poverty and wretched home. 
The man at the cemetery had seen her many times 
since the spring weather — not that she appeared to 
be interested in fine monuments — she never cared to 
notice them — but she always limped her solitary way 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. J7 

to a quiet corner of the single grave section, where, 
seated upon a neglected mound, she would stay for 
hours, quietly crooning to herself, oblivious of her 
surroundings and seemingly careless as to who might 
see her. The other morning she was at her post as 
soon as the gates were opened, and the cemetery 
keeper watched her painfully hobbling along to her 
accustomed seat and saw her reverently place upon 
it a little handful of blossoms and daisies. It was a 
faint though pretty attempt at decoration of the un- 
marked grave, but there could be no question about 
the purity of the sympathy which prompted the act. 
Taking a bunch of handsome roses in his hand, the 
keeper followed the little girl to the place where she 
was seated and handing them to her, said : ' ' Look here, 
little one, this won't do. I can't have a little girl 
like you moping away by yourself in this dull place. 
You must come up to the top of the hill and see all 
the nice people. I'll find you a seat and then when 
you are tired of being among all the fine folks and 
pretty flowers, you can take your bouquet and go 
home." " Oh, please let me stay where I am. My 
dress, Senor, is old and shabby, and I should be 
ashamed. I thank you for the roses. They are very 
sweet ; but may I lay them on the grave instead of 
taking them home ? They are too pretty for me, but are 
not too good for her. " ■ 'Why, little, girl, how strange- 
ly you talk. Whose grave do you wish to lay them 
on." " On my Mother's," was the tearful reply. The 
man turned away — tears were in his eye. The child's 
sorrow unmanned him. Recently I was looking 
around the lots when the keeper came by. ' ' How 
goes the little lame Indian girl ?" I asked. " I went 



78 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

down to the hospital to see her last night," he re- 
plied, "and she will never come here again until it 
is to be laid by her mother's side. She was dying 
when I left her, and as I pressed her little warm hand, 
in bidding her good bye, she said: ■' Thank you for 
the flowers. The angels told me that mother was 
grateful for them.' " 



ACCIDENTAL PROMPTERS. 

It takes a heap to make some people think of what 
they are here for. Nothing short of a terrible acci- 
dent or home calamity will cause some people to 
think of the hereafter. 



WHY SO MANY SUICIDES? 
Self-murder is an every-day journalistic dish-up. 
Why is this, in civilization? It was never known 
among the semi-civilized. It is because of ghoulish 
greed, liquor, fast and false living, and the unavoid- 
able evils and hardships pertaining to business. 



TARDINESS EXPLAINED. 
It takes money a far longer time to return than it 
does to go. 



SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY. 

Science and Christianity are like- a happy married 
couple, who go through life making it a blessing for 
themselves and others. Creedism is a jealous lover, 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 79 

a disturbing element in the community and doesn't 
know what it wants and wouldn't be contented if it 
had it. 



ELUSIVE BOODLE. 

Money slips away like a greased eel, and you don't 
know it's go le till it ain't there. Money is like a 
Summer toad ; it will lay dormant all Winter *in a 
bank, but once you get it in your pocket the warmth 
of your body will thaw it out and it will come to 
life and crawl away before you know it. 



WORSE THAN DEATH. 
Dishonor, the disloyalty of a friend or companion, 
the treachery of a wife or husband, are worse mis- 
fortunes than death. 



THEN AND NOW. 

In olden times society women worshiped stone 
idols, made to order. To-day society women 
worship pet dogs, with hair to match the carpet. 



ECHO. 

To-morrow, to-day will be yesterday, and to-mor- 
row will be to-day. 



BLEACHED BLOND MONKEYS. 

Round about the Upper Amazon, in South America, 
are a species of monkey that are said to bask in the 



80 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

hot sun until their hair turns the color of brass. 
They are known as bleached blond monkeys or solar 
prints. Historians say that farther north, in our 
great cities, are occasionally to be found the same 
species, in human form. 



WHO ARE WE? 
Man is the superior of the animal kingdom, and 
gives more annoyance to his fellows than all of the 
other animals and snakes combined. 



HOW TO DO IT. 

The way to do anything is to go at it and do it. 
Some people waste more time backing and filling 
than it would take to do the thing five times over. 



DON'T BE TOO READY WITH BITTER 
TRUTH. 

A fable that smooths and cheers the rugged path 
of life is of more material worth than a truth cal- 
culated to embitter. 



WHY FOOLS AND TRAMPS? 
Thinking is hard work. That's the reason there 
are so many tramps and fools around. 



A SPHERICAL CALCULATION. 
Should all the hills and mountains of the earth be 
cast into the rivers and lakes, and the earth's surface 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 8l 

made a level plain, its elevation would not be over 
three feet above the level of the sea. If all the hills 
and mountains were cast into the sea, they would 
not discolor the water. 



AS OTHERS HEAR US. 

Only one person in a thousand hears him or herself 
sing, talk, or play a musical instrument as others 
hear them. 



A THANKLESS JOB. 
The reward of the peacemaker is in heaven. He 
usually comes to grief in this world. 



BLESSINGS OF MISFORTUNE. 

Unfortunate happenings in life are exceptional op- 
portunities for developing merit and manhood. 
Everything that happens serves a purpose. 



WHAT IS PARTISAN POLITICS? 
P. P. is the circulating medium of crime, corruption, 
evil legislation and, oftentimes, war. Wise states- 
manship is a stranger to partisanship. 



HOW" WOULD THIS WORK WITH "THE 

FINEST?" 

There was a law in vogue at one time among the 

Incas of Peru, which held that an officer of the law 

who turned traitor to his sworn duty, and accepted 



82 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

blackmail, for the protection of crime, should be 
punished by imprisonment for life and confiscation 
of his ill-gotten gains. 



ONE OF THE EVILS OF UNIVERSAL 
SUFFRAGE. 
The great evil of universal suffrage is that it 
places the tramp, the pickpocket and the assassin on 
an equal footing with the ablest, wisest and best citi- 
zen in the community. 



NEVER FIND FAULT WITH THE 
WEATHER 

It is unparliamentary to find fault with the weather, 
for Nature's laws are imperative and beyond human 
power to change. Man's recourse lies in adaptability 
and making the best of the situation, minus peevish- 
ness or useless kicking. 



THE MOTHER OF THE CHICKEN. 

The hen that laid the egg is the mother of the 
chicken — but the hen that hatched it is the step- 
mother — from the fact that she stepped in and did 
the rest. 



GO BEFORE YOUR MAKER UNINCUM- 
BERED. 

It should be the universal desire to settle amicably 
all differences between man and man on earth, so 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 83 

that at death they may appear before God unin- 
cumbered with a feeling of having done wrong and 
not making amends. Reparation and forgiveness 
are gems of true Christianity. 



REMEDY FOR ILL-HUMOR. 

People who get out of sorts flounder in a quick- 
sand of bad humor, like a fish out of water. There- 
fore it is good policy to keep a full line of sorts in 
stock at all times, to draw from, as a preventive of 
ill feeling and annoyance to others. 



HOPE IS VALUABLE SECURITY. 

Hopes unrealized upon should not be cast aside, 
but filed way for future use. 



THE HELPING HAND. 

No man can lend a helping hand to him who is 
against the peace and welfare of mankind. 



PROPRIETORS AND EMPLOYES. 

Proprietors of a business are, in many instances, not 
nearly so well off or happy as their employes. 



"IN AT ONE EAR," ETC. 

Many people have the faculty of understanding 
but lack the power of appreciation, without which 
understanding is useless. But many more people 



84 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

lack the faculty of attention, which necessitates the 
telling of the same thing over and over again, breed- 
ing ill-temper and hasty speech. Such people are a 
nuisance to themselves and others. 



EMIGRATION. 

Uncle Sam should stop emigration for five years, 
and in the mean time take account of stock and 
banish the refuse. 



VALUE OF LIFE. 

Life is individual, and all its value depends on the 
individual possessing it. 



INCENTIVES TO PROGRESS. 

The misfortunes of one are often incentives for 
others to take hold and go ahead. Arctic expeditions 
and aerial navigation are examples of note. 



LUNCH TASTED GOOD 

At the old log-cabin school, amid the pines, the 
oaks, and the beech trees, over the spring of pure 
crystal water. 



THAT REMINDS ME. 

Speaking of "got to go," reminds me of an old 
trapper in our neighborhood by the name of Hardy 
Mathis, or Uncle Hardy, as we used to call him.. He 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 85 

was taken sick and sent for the doctor. When Doc. 
came he told Uncle Hardy he had a case of quick 
consumption and the only thing that would save his 
life was a quart of catnip tea. Uncle Hardy raised 
himself up in the bed and said, feebly: "Doc, I've 
got to go — I don't hold but a pint. " 



EVEN THE BRAVEST SURRENDER. 

Said Sambo : " I'm one of the bravest niggers what 
eber lived; not 'fraid of nuffin." "Yes you is," says 
Ephraim, "youse 'fraid to loan me a dollar and a 
half." " No, 'tain't that," says Sambo; " but I hates 
to part wid an old friend." 



THWART, THE BOUNCER. 

We lay plans, make up our minds to certain things, 
make proposals and propositions, but Thwart comes 
along and knocks us out. The way to stand in with 
this bouncer is to live up to the Davy Crocket 
motto. 



SERVICE AND SHOW. 

The best-looking things are not always best for 
practical purposes. 



LAWYER AND LITIGANT. 

Differences of opinion are the product of two minds. 
One may represent gold and the other lead ; but in 
many instances both are worthless, and the sum total 



86 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

is a quarrel, bloodshed, death and destruction. 
Lawyers wax fat on these differences of opinion, 
while the disputants become lean and hungry. 



THE SILVER QUESTION. 
Shall we have coinage of silver or not? This is 
the question now oxidizing the minds of many people, 
more on account of the scarcity of coin in their pock- 
ets than from any other cause. 



RULES BY PROXY. 
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world by 
proxy. Mankind would be better off if these repre- 
sentative rulers were at all times imbued with the 
spirit of the hand they represent. 



WILD OATS. 
Every man that ever amounted to anything much 
had more or less wild oats — preachers included — and I 
wouldn't go much on a man who hasn't sowed a few 
This oats business is a legacy, you know. 



WE DON'T KNOW. 

Half the people in this world don't know what 
they are here for, nor what it is all about. 



DUST TO DUST. 

Potters' fields are the burial grounds of those who 
in the race of life unfortunately got left at the finish. 



BARBY COEY*S PHILOSOPHY. 87 

From clay came we all, but few turn out peach-blow 
vases, while the majority of us work and blow hard 
enough to keep out of the Potters' field. 



MORTIFYING. 

Man often finds himself in a mortifying and humili- 
ating position. Lack of cash is, too often, unfortu- 
nately, the signal for mortification to set in. 



WHAT LIBERTY OF SPEECH MEANS. 

Liberty of speech means the right of the people 
separately or collectively to air their feelings, opin- 
ions and grievances, consistent with peace and mor- 
ality. But the law of the people which protects this 
right draws a line between its fair use and its abuse. 
Law-abiding citizens, employed or unemployed, 
have no desire to indulge in lawless or anarchistic 
chin-chin. 



WHERE WOMAN EXCELS. 
There are more women lecturers than men. 
Every man's wife and mother-in-law practices more 
or less oratory. 



TO THE POINT. 

If you have anything to say to anybody, on busi- 
ness, especially, begin right to the point, and don't 
go all around Robin Hood's barn, come in through 
the back door and meander through a barrel of chaff 
to get to one kernel of wheat. Come right out and 



88 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

make your business known, in the clearest manner, 
with the fewest words, in the shortest space of time, 
and you'll know the result in short order. First post 
yourself on what you really want; if there's merit in 
it, it will work for itself ; if not, drop it ; time is too pre- 
cious to waste over dead cats. Some people spend 
their lives rummaging through chaff and let good 
things pass before their eyes once a week without 
notice. You want to carry around with you at all 
times a stock of good judgment and enough courage 
to put a project into practical operation, if you ever 
expect to get along in life and keep in the procession. 



ONE BENEFIT OF THE LATE WAR. 

The war between the north and south demonstrat- 
ed to the whole world just how strong United Ameri- 
ca is, and settled the question of any European na- 
tion courting war with us. 



POINTS OF LAW. 

Possession may be nine points of the law, but there 
are cases where the fellow with the nine would be 
glad to exchange them for the other fellow's one. 



SALT. 



Chloride of sodium is one of the healthiest minerals 
ever discovered. In addition to its health-giving 
qualities, it is a great antidote for mistakes, and will, 
on occasion, save people from heaps of trouble and 



KARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 89 

loss. If I had only known earlier in life of the great 
moral power of salt I would be a wealthier man to- 
day. 



PEACEABLE AT HOME. 

The bravest of soldiers in time of battle are the 
most peaceful in times of peace. The most warlike 
at home are the biggest cowards on the battle field. 



WHERE INTELLIGENCE IS NEEDED. 

There are many who are smart enough to make 
money, but few with intelligence enough to keep it. 



THE PROPER END OF THE HORN. 

The wise man starts in at the little end of the horn, 
and comes out where it widens. Fools go the other 
way. 



NO BILL OF FARE. 

Life is a drama minus a programme. We never 
know what's coming on the stage next. 



HYMEN'S HANKS. 
Hymen ties many notable wedding knots, which 
often turn out to be tangled hanks. 



THE PHONOGRAPH. 

To the inventor of the phonograph belongs the 
honor of having solved the problem of corraling 



90 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

sound. Suppose the phonograph had been in use in 
the time of Christ, His voice could have been stored 
up and handed down through generations, and to-day 
we could have listened reverently to His God-like 
tones. 



MENTAL CORRESPONDENCE. 

All great men and women reach their highest suc- 
cess through mental correspondence. 



IN AND OUT. 

Fools can get into almost anything, but it takes 
smart lawyers and money to get them out. 



WHAT WEDDING PRESENTS SHOULD 
BE. 

Wedding presents should consist of articles of 
practical utility, as an incentive to a progressive life 
for the bride and groom. 



AT SEA. 

There are more people at sea on the land than on 
the ocean. 



A MUTE TABLE. 

A mute table is one covered with fine damask and 
gorgeous table fixings, but not much of anything to eat. 
A friend once invited me to a fashionable dinner, 
where all the tables sparkled away up in G., but 



6ARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 91 

when I got through I was worn out and hungrier 
than when I started in. 'Twas all style and starva- 
tion. There's nothing in it. 



SHE'S HIS SHEPHERD. 

Those British lordlings who marry American heir- 
esses must think to themselves ' ■ She is my shep- 
herd, I shall not want." 



"WE ARE THE PEOPLE." 

The life of Republican government is consent of 
the people. Hence if the people do not like their 
government, the power to change it inheres in them, 
and not in the government. Such changes should 
be made through the ballot box, peaceably. 



A HARD PROBLEM. 

It's a hard problem with many how to get along, 
keep out of debt and pay living expenses and have 
anything left. 



PRIVATE AND PUBLIC. 

Man's private life should tally with his public pro- 
fession. No man can be true to himself or others . 
who lives a double life. 



COULDN'T KEEP AWAY. 
Bill Spillers lost all his money in pork speculation, 
in Chicago ; he then worked his way back to Califor- 
nia, where he made a strike in the mines. Returning 



92 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

to the Windy City, he tackled the wheat market and 
now he's a dead broke rat in the pit. Once a fool 
'most always a fool ! 



PAN JUDGMENT. 

Man's pan judgment of man is the true way — that 
is to say, judge him as he pans out. Man is like a 
mine — one day he pans out all right, and maybe the 
next day he'll turn refractory, and the vein of good- 
ness narrows down and finally peters out. 



CHASING LIGHTNING BUGS. 

The leaning toward religious superstition is like 
chasing lightning bugs to warm one's self by. 



FIRST LOVE. 

The first girl a fellow falls in love with is usually 
the one he leaves behind. 



WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? 
There are only two grand free passes in this world 
— when we pass in and pass out of it. 



BEFORE COLUMBUS. 

America has to-day less wealth of useful things 
than it had when Columbus discovered it. Gold, sil- 
ver, iron, copper, lead, zinc, timber, wild game, fruits 
and Indians have been greatly reduced in quantity 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 93 

since Chris, made his first call upon the Continent. 
Columbus always felt slighted on account of the 
Indians not returning this call, but it was probably a 
good thing for him that they didn't. It was Indian 
etiquette in those days to use a tomahawk for a visit- 
ing card, and it was proper "form" to carry off a 
scalp as a memento of the call. 



THE LAW OF COMPENSATION. 

The young man with an influential and wealthy 
father to boost him up the ladder of life lacks the 
practical experience of the poor boy who has to hus- 
tle for himself. Should both tumble, ten to one 
the practical boy would be able to pick himself up 
again, while the artificial one would lie prone and be- 
wail his fate. 



HOW TO KNOW PEOPLE. 

There are two ways of gaining knowledge of peo- 
ple — one is to be in business with them and the other 
is through the marriage knot. 



DIED YOUNG. 

Those people who never experienced any unhappy 
incidents in their lives died young. 



NOTHING MUCH LEFT TO PATENT. 

Some one made the remark that American inven- 
tive genius is lagging, on account of the few patents 



94 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

being applied for, for absolutely new things. The 
fact of the matter is, that the Americans have pat- 
ented about everything under the sun that's in sight, 
even to air for railway brakes, and they are now 
working on an invention to communicate with Mars. 



A TEST OF CIVILIZATION. 

One of the best tests of civilization is the circula- 
tion of books. Healthy food for the mind is as neces- 
sary as healthy food for the body. 



A COMMON KINSHIP. 

Bereavement falls to the lot of all mankind. 



THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER. 

A jealous man is a cross between a mad lion and a 
fool, liable to commit murder or suicide at the slight- 
est provocation. He's an enemy to himself and 
creates misery and unhappiness for others. A jeal- 
ous woman is a tigress in human form, whom Mr. 
Satan uses to- perpetuate misery, suffering and 
crime. 

SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
Rarely do men make a success that stays by them 
before the age of forty, their life up to that time be- 
ing experimental. Girls, as a rule, get through sow- 
ing their wild roses by the time they are twenty- five, 
and their future depends greatly upon the character 
and disposition of their life companions, while in 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 95 

turn, the husband's success depends much upon 
the character and disposition of the wife. Between 
the two, marriage is made either a success or a 
failure, as the case may be. 



"ET TU, BRUTE." 

The friendly bark of a good and faithful dog is 
more pleasant to the ear than the voice of a brute in 
human form. 



UP TO DATE ADVICE. 

It is a first-rate plan for those sojourning at hotels 
and boarding houses not to become too intimate with 
their fellow-sufferers. 



FIRE AND PETROLEUM. 

Drowning sorrow with drink is like trying to put 
out fire with kerosene. 



BY THEIR WORKS YE SHALL KNOW 
THEM. 

Never be carried away at the sight of anything 
new, until it proves itself by its works. I once saw 
a new double-barreled shot-gun advertised for eleven 
dollars. I sent on the money and received the gun, 
which looked like a two hun dred dollar field-peice . Af- 
ter loading her up, I went out and fired it at a flock of 
blackbirds. The thing busted and kicked me forty 
feet down into a ditch, and then jumped on me after 



9 6 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 



I was down, and nearly beat me to death before my 
friends could pull the thing off. Come to examine it, 
I found that it was made of gas-piping and painted 
to look like a first-class sportsman's gun. My advice 
is go slow on new things. That gun showed what 
it was by its works. 



IN CASE OF WAR WITH ENGLAND. 

In case of war with any first-class nation the great 
trouble with England would be t]iat her forces and 
territory are too much scattered. It would require 
half her navy to guard her colonies against an enemy, 
and, besides, some of her possessions might think it 
a favorable opportunity to set up housekeeping on 
their own account. The strength of England lies in 
being diplomatic enough not to go to war with any 
first-class nation. 



THE TIME TO SAVE MONEY 

Is when you are making it. You hear people ex- 
claim : " Oh, how can I save money on, account of my 
expenses?'" Yet when misfortune overtakes them 
they get along at less than one-half their ordinary 
outlay. Poverty makes great economizers of peo- 
ple. 



WHEN PEOPLE SHOW UP BEST. 

People show up best during their courting days, 
up to the waning of the honeymoon — then comes the 
reverse of the gaudy picture. Father Time alone 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 97 

proves the worthlessness of the union of ■ ' two hearts 
that beat as one," provided one doesn't beat the 
other, while divorce looks on and smiles. 



GOOD FOR NOTHING. 

To be good for goodness' sake, without any other 
object, is to be good for nothing. Sincerely good 
people are naturally good. 



"DOING" YOUR FELLOWS FOR A LIVE- 
LIHOOD. 

The only effort made by some people to get along 
in this world is to " do " their fellow-men. 



LOOK OUT FOR IT. 

Two hundred years from now will see the Conti- 
nent of Europe overrun by Russia, and the American 
Continent, from Alaska to Cape Horn, under the in- 
fluence of the English language. This is the predes- 
tined fate of the two Continents. 



REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURAL AP- 
PLIANCES. 

" Tater-digging hogs" are a new swinological pro- 
duct. Down on my uncle's plantation is a black- 
smith by the name of Jim Sutton, who has invented 
a ' • tater digger " with a cuff-shaped wire basket, so that 
it fits over a hog's nose, up to his eyes, with a strong cord 
to tie around the hog's neck and fasten the " digger " 



98 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

on. All you have to do then is to turn the hog loose 
in the potato patch, and he goes right to work root- 
ing up the " taters " faster than three people can 
pick. This cuff-shaped basket prevents the hog eat- 
ing the ''bog-oranges," but he keeps on digging just 
the same, until he finds he isn't in it ; then he gets 
mad and goes to digging out of spite. My uncle has 
got an old razor-back sow that can dig two acres and 
a half, and not squeal once. Jim has been offered a 
hundred thousand dollars for his patent, but he says 
he will make more by renting it out to farmers all 
over the country. He thinks that inside of a year he 
will have a hundred thousand hogs at work dig- 
ging the tubers. The only thing he has to fear is 
the laboring men. He's afraid they will go on a 
strike and kill the hogs for taking their job away 
from them ; but he hopes, if they undertake to do 
anything like that, the Government will order out 
the troops and protect the hogs. 



GET INTO THE HARNESS. 

The record of our government proves that it has 
been altogether, thus far, of an experimental nature 
with regard to finance, tariff, naval structure and a 
few more things. Isn't it about time we got down to 
business? 



TO THE MEMORY OF GENERAL GRANT. 

No one better appreciates the soldierly qualities 
and magnanimous spirit of General Grant than those 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 99 

who fought against him. And these grey veterans 
stand ready to accord him all the honor his name and 
memory deserves. 



WHAT IS FAITH? 
A belief in unseen things, like the fellow's trunk in 
hock for board, with nothing in it. 



PARTIAL KINDNESS. 
I wouldn't go to a clam-bake with a man who 
would step out of his way to do a favor for a rich 
person, just because he was rich. Do your fellow-man 
a good turn whenever you can, regardless of what his 
circumstances are. 



UNDER "PUBLIC NECESSITIES." 

All railroads and telegrahic lines should be own- 
ed and controlled by the government, for the general 
welfare of the public. 



A BIG COLLECTION. 

From all accounts, no other world in existence has 
a more general assortment of everything good, bad 
and indifferent than ours, and mankind makes the 
biggest display. 



TO THE CHARITABLY INCLINED. 

Wouldn't it be far better for wealthy people, who 
intend to leave something for charity at their death, 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 



that, whatever they propose to give should be given 
before they die, so as to avoid litigation and miscar- 
riage of the will of the donor? 



THE PICTURE OF LIFE. 
As a rule, people are never as good or as bad as 
they are painted. 



THE JOKER IN TRADE. 

The little joker in trade is to get something for as 
near nothing as possible, and sell it for as much as 
you can; the difference is where the joke comes in. 



-* WHAT TO EXPECT. 
Never be surprised at disappointment; accustom 
yourself to it, and the quicker you get used to it the 
better you are off. 



MODERN TRAPPERS. 

There are more hunters and trappers for wild and 
savage beasts, known as crooks and criminals, 
among us to-day than was ever known in the early 
settlement of the country, when bears, panthers and 
savage Indians roamed and howled throughout the 
the land. 



ABOUT GIVING A DOG A BAD NAME. 
That saying, "Give a dog a bad name and you 
might as well kill him," doesn't always hold good, 



BAkBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. tOt 

for we had a dog on our place, named Anarchy, one 
of the finest possum dogs that ever barked up a per- 
simmon tree. It was a good thing the dog didn't 
realize the meaning of its name, for if he had the 
"purp " would probably have turned its attention to 
killing sheep. 



TANTALIZING TESTS. 

Difficulties and troubles are tantalizing tests of 
man's character and ability. 



MISHAPS. 

A mishap is liable to anyone, and there are no ex- 
ceptions. 



"TAKE YOUR PARTNERS." 
Encourage dancing, for it develops activity of the 
limbs. Who ever heard of a dancing master being 
run over by a trolley car? 



WHERE METEORS FALL. 
More dazzling meteors have fallen in Wall Street 
than in any other place of its size in the world. 



CUSTOMS. 
It is only natural that every country should have 
its own customs, manners and peculiarities, distinctly 
different from all others, and it is ridiculous for a 
stranger visiting a strange country to expect to have 
everything there in harmony with his own native 



102 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

land. If a person expects to find a foreign country 
just like the one he left, then where is the sense in 
leaving? Some people spoil the pleasure of a trip by- 
grumbling, fault-finding and eternally quoting how 
much better things are in their own country, forget- 
ting that the prime purpose of going abroad is to add 
to their experience in life and to see things that can 
only be seen abroad. Petrified fools should never go 
away from home — they learn nothing by traveling. 



EAR TROUBLES. 

There are many people who give themselves un- 
necessary trouble and worry by listening, and paying 
solid attention to things that do not concern them. 



IT DOES SOMETIMES HAPPEN. 
There is such a thing as doing too much for people, 
who take you for a fool, along with what you do for 
them. 



TEMPER PLAYS HAVOC WITH JUDG- 
MENT. 

In a fit of anger persons often say and do things 
which they would give the world to undo or recall. 
Never allow treacherous temper to usurp your judg- 
ment. 



KEEP YOUR WEATHER EYE OPEN. 
Remember that your body is a kind of craft tossing 
upon the sea of life, and your intelligence the helms- 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. I03 

man, looking out ahead for squalls, wrecks and reefs, 
thus guiding tl e frail structure safely on the voyage 
to its place of anchor, the grave. 



MAN AND WOMAN. 

The success of man as a man is not so great as that 
of woman as a woman. She is the most successful 
of the two. 



MAN AND WIFE. 

In nine cases out of ten, trouble between man and 
wife results from failure to keep themselves up to 
the standard of what they appeared to be before they 
were married. 



WHAT WILL THE VERDICT BE? 

We are in Nature's court, and on trial from birth to 
death, when we are judged in accordance with our 
lives. 



WHAT KEEPS US ON THE MOVE. 
This earth is a toy globe upon which human beings 
play, kept in motion through grasping for things they 
cannot reach. 



THE BEST EPITAPH. 

The highest praise that can be given a human be- 
ing is the sorrow of the public when they have been 



104 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

called away, and the worst stigma that can be cast 
upon one's memory is a feeling of relief at their de- 
parture. 



BAD FOR THE FAITHFUL. 

Indiscriminate faith in human beings is bad for the 
faithful. 



ATMOSPHERED. 

I have been atmosphered from so far below zero 
that I had to set a bucket under the thermometer to 
catch the mercury, up to one hundred and ten in the 
shade, and not a breeze in sight. Experience is a 
great teacher. 



AN EXPERIENCED CHRISTIAN. 

The most experienced Christian is one who has lit- 
erally gone to the devil, was dissatisfied and return- 
ed in the end, a confirmed believer. 



RAPID TRANSIT AGE. 

To-day is the day of rapid transit. People want to 
pass on and get through as quickly as possible. Sen- 
timent must get out of the way or be run over. 



PAST HAPPENINGS. 

Past happenings of our lives should not wholly be 
forgotten but turned to good account. Experience 



barby coey's PHILOSOPHY. 10$ 

says you are excusable the first time for not knowing 
better, but don't let it occur again, else it will be 
your own fault. 



WHAT IS MAN? 
Man's conduct is the man. 



AN IMPORTANT GATHERING. 

Gathering dollars is one of the necessary features 
of civilization. 



LEAVE OUT THE WEIGHT. 
Fish stories would carry more weight if the heft of 
the fish was left out. 



HE GREASED HIS MOUTH. 
A certain young politician in our neighborhood was 
somewhat bashful, and whenever called upon to 
make a speech, a three months' dry season set in in his 
mouth, so that his words would hang fire, till finally 
his speaking apparatus would so completely clog 
up with words and phrases that he couldn't utter a 
sound. He went to a doctor about his trouble, and 
the M. D. advised him to grease his mouth well 
with bear's oil just a few moments before he under- 
took to speak again, and he would find that that 
would loosen things up. A few nights after he was 
called upon to address an audience in the Young 
Men's Christian Association, the subject assigned him 
being " Thought." He had his little bottle of bear's 



lo6 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

oil with him, and took a mouthful of the lubrication 
as he got up before the audience and started in on 
"Thought." He hadn't more than just started 
when things began to show signs of breaking camp, 
and all at once his under jaw and tongue became un- 
manageable and started off at a rapid rate, tearing 
through "Shakespeare," 4 ' Blackstone, " "My Dar- 
ling Mary," "Pluto," "When to Cut Elder Brush," 
"Sowing Seeds," " How to Play Poker," " The Best 
Brand of Wine," " Cato," "Touch the Button," 
" Your Ante," " Don't be Shy," "Come in the Same 
Please," — till finally the audience protested against 
hearing their private affairs made public and left the 
hall in disgust. 



HOW I LOST A MILLION. 

In the fall of '68 there was an unusual crop of 
acorns in the Red River bottom lands of Texas, and 
I lost a million dollars that year by not having hogs 
enough to eat 'em up. 



PITCH AND LOCATION. 
Pitch is considered healthy when located in pine 
knots, but the effect is different when it's located in a 
ship at sea. 



GIVING SIN A LONG LEASE OF LIFE. 

Isn't it somewhat of a mistake to preach hell here- 
after? Such an outlook must have a bad effect on the 
sinful and wayward classes, who argue, • ' Oh, well, 
if that's so, the hereafter is away off, and we've plenty 



BAkBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 107 

of time to think about repenting when the time comes. " 
Hell is right here on earth, and somebody is catching 
it every day for their misdeeds. 



HIGH-PRICED KICKERS. 
Chronic kickers, who are forever grumbling about 
the price of everything, as a rule charge the most ex- 
orbitant prices for their own wares. 



SPELLING ALTERS CASES. 

The Maid of Athens was made of clay, just the 
same class, of building material used in the construc- 
tion of mankind in general. 



MANLY MEN. 

An honest doubter is more to be admired than a 
hypocrite. 



JUST AS IMPOSSIBLE. 

It is just as impossible for the devil to do a kind 
act as it is for the good Lord to do a mean one. 



GOOD BY, BOSTON! 

A lady down in Yucatan planted a bean near a tele- 
phone wire and in due time it sprouted. Then she 
trained the vine so as to run up the wire, and it bore 
a fine crop of beans, which ripened on the vine. One 
day she went out to gather her crop, when, to her sur- 
prise, she discovered that the beans had been eaves- 



Io8 6ARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

dropping, and had caught every word that had pass- 
ed over the wire for three months past. By putting 
one of the beans to her ear, every message that had 
been sent over the wire was repeated. They were 
so thoroughly telephonized, that you could hold 
one in the palm of your hand, talk to it, and then 
hand it around, when the performance would be re- 
peated. A lady sang "The Last Rose of Summer" 
to a handful of beans, and when she had finished, 
handed each person present a bean, and each sepa- 
rate bean repeated every note of music as perfect as 
the original. A number of beans were placed on the 
piano, with the same result. You may have a pock- 
etful of Bostons, saturated with famous operas, and all 
you have to do, when you want to hear the opera 
of •"Martha," for instance, is to pull out a "Martha" 
bean, hold it to your ear, and there you have it. 
Boston ain't in it any more, and all there's left for 
the " Hub " to do now is to pull down her sign and 
take off her hat to Yucatan. 



WHAT GOD LIKES TO SEE. 

It pleases our Heavenly Father to see Christianity 
in practical operation, in the form of railways, steam- 
ships, Atlantic cables, grain fields, manufacturing and 
non-sectarian schools. 



NEVER SPOIL A GOOD YARN. 

There should be a game law for the prevention of 
cruelty to good yarns and harmless stories, which 
are necessary auxiliaries to the pleasure of man 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 109 

kind. The Author has spun and woven into this 
book a few all-wool yarns, upon which its readers 
may string a few leisure moments of pleasure, with- 
out extra charge. 



LIVING SCIENCE. 

Many people have got the science of living down 
so fine that they are able to live off other people, 
and never do a lick of work themselves. 



NO EXCUSE FOR UNGODLINESS. 

No one was ever so poor but that he could afford to 
wash and keep clean — there is no excuse for ungodli- 
ness. 



HAVE TO BACK WATER. 

Fools agree with each other in what they say and 
do, but when they come in contact with intelligent 
people they are lost in their own ignorance. Every 
fool is his own stumbling block. 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 

One whom you can trust. 



IF I COULD ONLY RECALL. 

How often we hear people exclaim, " Oh, if I 
could only recall my past life — ten, fifteen or twenty- 
five years — how differently I would order it!" Our 



HO BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

past lives are useful as guide-posts to our future, and 
our experience an example to those beginning life. 
The Author is not desirous of living his life over again, 
for he has had a hard row to hoe, and would much 
prefer joining the great majority, and experience 
what there is in it. 



HOW MONEY IS MADE AND LOST. 

Men make money through their acquaintances and 
lose it through their friends. 



GENTEEL BEGGARS. 
There's a peculiar class of people who never think 
of buying anything if there is a ghost of a show to 
get it for nothing. They will spend four dollars 
worth of time trying to get a thing for nothing that 
doesn't cost twenty-five cents. 



WHAT IS GLORY? 

Glory is zephyr capital, good only in the trade 
winds. He who works for glory in this world lives a 
i bloated pauper. 



RELIGION OF OLD MAIDS AND BACHE- 
LORS. 

Old maids and bachelors take for their text in life . 
the third verse of the third chapter of Genesis. If all 
hands and the cook should adopt the same line of life, 
tariff reform and the labor question would be settled in 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. Ill 

short order. There wouldn't be anybody left to 
agitate anything. 



A HAPPY DISPOSITION. 

I 

i A happy disposition is having the faculty of turn- 
ing accidents and happenings to good account. 



UPON WHOM THE RAIN FALLS. 

Upon the meek and the just, while the unjust are 
often sheltered in palaces built with money right- 
fully belonging to those "out in the wet." 



MAN'S UNRULY TONGUE. 

Man's conscience is ever busy keeping his tongue 
out of difficulties. 



WHAT IS DEATH AND THE HERE- 
AFTER? 

Death is simply another step higher in life ; our 
bodies are depositories for existence in this world and 
death the check upon which the deposit is withdrawn 
and transferred to a better body in a higher sphere, 
where the surroundings are rest, peace, happiness, 
joy and contentment, free from the worry, sickness, 
sorrow, toil, hardship and suffering of life on earth. 
Life never dies — it is progressive. Before we were 
born we knew not what our bodies were to be, nor 
that we would know each other facially here, nor our 
conditions and surroundings, but when we appeared 
in this world all these things were revealed and made 



112 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

known to us. So it will be in the world to come, 
after death, which means to be born again in Heaven, 
where, according to our Christian knowledge, we will 
meet our friends and know them facially. My par- 
ents are both dead, also a brother and a sister, but 
all are living in Heaven, as much so as if they had 
gone from one State or country in this world to an- 
other, and it is only a question of time when the mes- 
senger of death will summon me to join them. It 
is this rich inheritance awaiting me in the next world 
which prompts me to be in good spirits and feel hap- 
py in this world, whether I be rich or poor, whether I 
live in a palace or under the boughs of a banyan tree 
in the wilds of Africa. You will meet your friends 
in Heaven and know them as you did in this world ; 
therefore do not worry, but make the most of life 
you can, and have all the enjoyment possible in an 
honorable way, for we are only children in this 
world, experiencing our first training in the primary 
department of the school of life; when we have 
finished we will be advanced to a higher department. 
If you have lost a little child, don't mourn or worry, 
for your little darling is neither dead nor lost, it is 
just across the river of death, waiting and watching 
for you to come and greet it. ' 4 Tis not all of life 
to live nor all of death to die." 



SCOLD BUT NEVER INSTRUCT. 
You will often find parents who seem to take de- 
light in fault-finding and scolding their children and 
servants, but who never by any chance make an en- 
deavor to instruct them to do this or that, and then 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. II3 

they wonder why it is their children are so far behind 
others of their age. The same with servants whose 
mistresses are ignorant of domestic affairs. 



THE PEOPLE'S VOCABULARY. 
Poptilar language, like the popular music which 
greets the ears and gladdens the hearts of the masses, 
is the only language to rely upon to reach the public 
mind. 



SHORT HISTORY OF PROGRESS. 

Modern improvements are but the crude ancient 
ideas refined. 



WHAT ARE INVESTMENTS? 

Just financial farming — that's all. The money in- 
vested is the seed sown, the business the crop, and 
the profit the harvest. It often happens that the 
crop turns out bad, and in many cases the seed fails 
to come up and is lost altogether, allee samee Hay- 
see.dee. 



GOLD A DISTURBING ELEMENT. 

There was a time when gold was produced in suf- 
ficient quantity to answer the purpose of a circulating 
medium of all the trade and commerce of the world , 
but with the increase of population comes the in- 
crease of industry, which is the basis of commerce, 
until to-day we find that the supply of gold is inade- 
quate, and it has therefore ceased to be a virtue, and 



J 14 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

has become a bone of contention and a disturbing 
element in trade and commerce, while silver has in- 
creased in production, keeping pace with the world's 
increase, and is therefore entitled to first place, instead 
of gold, which should retire upon its laurels. In 
short, gold has got more on its hands than it can at- 
tend to properly, and is wearing itself out, running to 
and fro, here and there, from Europe to America, 
disturbing values, business, progress and the happi- 
ness of mankind. Give gold a rest, and let silver 
have a show. 



HOME-MADE RELICS. 
When we grow old we become relics of ourselves. 
As everybody, then, is his own relic, let us see to it that 
we present as good an appearance as possible. 



THE THING TO DO. 

The thing to do, for the sake of doing it, is to do 
good. Never do a mean thing, even for love — the 
strongest incentive on this planet. 



ONE-SIDED EDUCATION. 
Some people become educated to a point where 
they imagine that they are smart enough to live with- 
out work, but without sense enough to know how to 
doit. 



KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT A MASTER. 
It is often the case that fellows with knowledge are 
lacking in ability to put it to any good use, until 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 115 

some other, with executive ability, comes along 
and makes a fortune out of the first one's intelli- 
gence. The executive fellow is a mind prospector, 
who prospects for stray minds, out of which he pans 
pure gold. 



WHERE THE LORD DOES NOT PRO- 
VIDE. 

It is only the lazy, thriftless and superstitious who 
believe that the world owes them a living and that 
the Lord will provide for them, whether they work 
or not. For all such people the Lord provides the 
road or the poorhouse. 



BIMETALLISM. 

Some one asked one of the picked crew of congress- 
men the other day what the term bimetallism meant. 
His answer was that it was a corpusfungus term, 
which meant the act of buying scrap metal. 



PICKS. 

Never pick a quarrel. It is better to pick the 
banjo, for music hath charms to massage the savage 
from head to foot. 



LIBERAL VIEWS. 

Genial and companionable people are those with 
liberal views. We should be cosmopolitan in spirit 
and feeling, and value men and women as we find 
them, and not be governed by partiality. Never 



Il6 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

judge a person by the clothing or jewelry he wears. 
The author has traveled all over the world, and min- 
gled with all sorts of people, from a Hindoo tramp to 
kings, queens, potentates and potentaters, and some 
of the biggest fools he even ran across were dressed 
out of sight. Good manners go far ahead of dress, 
although it is well enough to have some kind of a 
garb on, as it isn't fashionable to go naked, though 
the woman I saw at the opera the other night was 
about as near that point as the prohibition law allows; 
at least that part of her body that appeared above 
the box rail didn't have much of anything on it. On 
the same occasion I paid a curb-stone broker two 
dollars and a half for a dollar seat behind a woman 
with a cow-boy's hat on, and I didn't see the opera, 
and lost my money besides. 



WHAT GOD EXPECTS OF US. 

All that God expects of us is to obey the laws of 
nature and the dictates of our conscience. 



LEARNED AND TO BE LEARNED. 

The more we learn the more we realize how little 
we know of the inexhaustible fountain of knowledge 
yet to be acquired. 



THE GREATEST CONQUERORS. 

The greatest conquerors are those who conquer 
themselves by destroying the fortifications of Satan, 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. I17 

in the form of evil habits, and planting instead prin- 
ciples which grow into noble men and women. 



SATAN AS A CATERER. 

Satan furnishes food for gossip-mongers and can 
always be relied upon for supplies for fresh scandal. 



COMPULSORY HONESTY. 

A man who is honest through fear of punishment 
is not to be trusted. This is compulsory honesty put 
into practice for the time being and liable to go 
wrong the first opportunity. A sincere and truly 
honest person is honest and reliable, through love of 
principle, and fears nothing. A man who is honest 
because it is the best policy is not to be trusted, for 
he is honest only when it is to his interest to be so. 



ZOOLOGY AND TENEMENT HOUSES. 

The cages of wild animals in the zoological gar- 
dens and menageries are kept in a cleaner and 
healthier condition than the pigstys and lairs in tene- 
ment houses and crowded districts in which human 
beings den. 



INDIVIDUALITY. 

America is the land of individuality and liberty to 
develop character and work it into practicability and 
usefulness, independent of parentage. In England, 
France, Germany, Italy, Spain and other parts of the 



Il8 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

world, men are made to-day after the same old pat- 
tern in use for five hundred years, and you have only 
to know their nationality to place them at once — but 
with an American it is different — you can no more 
judge of his character from such data than you could 
tell the nature of an animal by the color of its hair. 
The only sure method is to know him personally. 
Foreigners wonder at what they term the contradic- 
tory character of the American. It is the fusion of a 
variety of international peculiarities that has pro- 
duced this variety of character in the American, and 
when we take into consideration our utter disregard 
of tradition, it is no wonder that our country is so 
great as she swells out to-day. 



MAN'S TRUE STRENGTH. 

The true strength of man lies in his power of in- 
telligence. Physically, the strength of man is the 
same as that of the lower order of animals, as the 
horse, the ox, or the mule. 



MAN'S MANY WAYS TO ACT THE FOOL. 

There is no animal on the face of the earth with 
more wealth of ways to act the fool than a human 
being. 



PRINCIPLE AND IMPULSE. 

The man who speaks and acts upon principle goes 
through life fearless and intact. He who acts and 
speaks upon impulse doesn't know where he stands 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. HQ 

for certain, and half of the time is so badly scattered 
that it would puzzle an anatomical lawyer to put him 
together again, so that he might be good for any- 
thing. 



AN ARCHITECTURAL POINTER. 

Realism tears down air castles without remorse, 
and builds up more substantial things in their place. 



EQUALLY CRUEL. 

The extremely civilized and uncivilized are equally 
cruel. It is the happy medium of life where Chris- 
tianity abounds. 



BLESSING CHILDREN OF A LARGER 

GROWTH. 

I never look upon a picture of "Christ Blessing 
Little Children" that it doesn't occur to me how 
much his services are needed to-day to bless older 
people. 



EVIL OCCUPATION. 

Never engage in any business tainted with wrong. 
Nature bears at all times a harvest of legitimate op- 
portunities for the benefit of the human family to 
engage in and to enjoy. Do not sit idly by and wait 
for these opportunities to come to you, for if you do 
you will get left, and be found sitting on the same 
old nest. Select the occupation you want to follow, 



120 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

stick to it, and cultivate it with honesty, sobriety, 
hard work and good judgment, and your success is 
assured. 



THE BEST KIND OF CONDIMENT. 
Instruction, spiced and seasoned with humor, is the 
most palatable to the brain. 



EVERY COUNTRY HAS ITS SCUM. 

Countries, like rivers, lakes and seas, have their 
driftwood and scum. There are good, bad and indif- 
ferent people in all countries; no one nation is 
peopled by angels solely. America is no exception 
to the rule, and if it was put to the test she would 
take the premium for having some of the best and 
worst people on the face of the earth. 



IN THE WAY OF OURSELVES. 

One great trouble in life is that we get in the way 
of ourselves, stumble and fall over our mistakes, and 
receive injuries from which many of us never recover, 
and are thus made cripples for life. Lack of fore- 
thought, judgment, reason, and bad influence, has 
led many a poor creature astray, who might be to-day 
living happily instead of in sorrow and remorse. 
Man is a clock, if he did but know it. His heart is the 
mainspring, his brain the works which direct the 
hands, while the eyes and ears illuminate the face 
and strike the time. We are wound up when we are 
born, and the key — no two alike — thrown away. 



BARBY COEYS PHILOSOPHY. 121 

Some run for years, keeping good time, while others 
stop after a few days. The good ones command 
high esteem while the poor ones go to the junk shop. 
Man is his own time-piece and can run himself to 
suit himself, and with greater ease correctly than if 
he kept bad time. 



GRASSHOPPERS ON TOAST. 

When grasshoppers are abundant, the Indians dig 
a hole, build a fire in the bottom of it, and drive the 
swarms of insects into it from all directions. They 
then cover the opening with blankets, and the hop- 
pers, thus killed and roasted, are taken out and put 
into bags with salt. Afterward* they are spread out 
in the sun to dry ; then they are ready for eating, and 
are said by connoisseurs to be finer than shrimp. 



ADVERTISEMENTS ARE EDITORIALS. 

Those who read newspapers, and do not recognize 

that advertisements are business editorials, have lost 

a large amount of commercial training which they 

» otherwise might have had without any additional 

cost. 



HOW I RECEIVED INSPIRATION OF A 
FUTURE LIFE. 

Hardships, toils, disappointments and a full round 
of misfortunes set me to thinking, what are we here 
for and what is it all about ? The loss of my mother 
was the hardest blow of all. I went out into the for- 



122 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

est, and there, in silent prayer, thought and medita- 
tion, implored God to tell me whether I would ever 
see her again. After the first fervor of my supplica- 
tion passed away, a feeling of relief came to me, and 
I was as much assured as though a direct answer was 
given me, that I would meet mother again in Heaven 
and know her there facially as my mother. From 
that time on I have lived and will die in that belief, 
which, I feel, was a message from mother herself, 
sent through the power of our Creator. 



PHYSICAL DISABILITY. 

A person may be physically weak and unsound, but 
if one's conscience is at ease he is all right. 



SORROW. 

Cold and inhuman are those who have no sorrow 
in their hearts. Sorrow is the forerunner of charity 
for those who suffer and are in need of help. If we 
see a poor dumb animal suffering and hungry, our 
sorrow prompts us to render it assistance. We are 
not here to live a selfish life. We must have sorrow, 
pity and charity for both man and beast, in order to 
worthily fulfil our earthly mission. 



OUR CONSCIENCE IS OUR SOUL. 

It is clear to my mind that the word ' ' soul " is a 
misinterpretation of "conscience," which is really 
the soul. We can feel, appreciate, understand and 
realize a conscience, but no human being can feel, 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 123 

understand or appreciate a soul, what it is or where 
it is, for it is immaterial, while a conscience is tan- 
gible, speaks to us, argues with us, and consequently- 
must be regarded as material. When we die this con- 
science of ours accompanies our life to its new body, 
described in a former chapter, and both dwell to- 
gether as they did on earth. Our conscience is our 
soul. 



THE MERCHANTS' BEST CUSTOMERS. 
People who pay cash for what they get are the 
only absolutely reliable customers upon whom the 
merchant counts to build up and keep alive his busi- 
ness. This valuable class of customers are, as a rule, 
of the medium class, who are never rated in the 
"Commercial Record," have no credit, don't want 
any, nor don't expect any. 



A CASE OF NON-REGRETTIBUS. 
No husband will ever regret taking the advice of a 
good wife. 



HOW ABOUT THIS? 
There is a maxim to the effect that " we should do 
our utmost to encourage the beautiful, for the useful 
encourages itself . " About the beautiful being short 
on encouragement, seems to me a mistake. Take a 
beautiful woman for an example. She's got encourage- 
ment to spare — sometimes a surplus large enough to 
break the hearts of forty men. And so about the 
useful being long on encouragement, that's a mistake, 



124 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

too. Take a tramp for instance. He's useful for saw- 
ing wood, but it takes lots of outside encouragement 
to get him at it. 



! WHAT BECOMES OF BORROWED 
MONEY. 

Only one dollar out of three borrowed is ever paid 
back. Hence he who lends must chance a loss while 
he who borrows must be in debt. 



TO OUR OLIVE BRANCHES. 

Little children, as you entered the world in tears, 
while all around you smiled, endeavor so to live that 
you will die smiling, while all around you weep. 



WHERE EUROPE EXCELS AMERICA. 

The only thing that Europe excels America in is 
the manufacture of instruments of torture and death," 
known as the arts of war on land and sea. The bloom 
of youth of Europe are slaves to the war-god, and spend 
the springtime of their lives worshiping this demon, 
instead of learning trades, useful industries and com- 
merce, to the benefit of their fellows, rather than put- 
ting forth all their energies and talents toward tortur- 
ing and destroying them. Over here in America we are 
neither idolaters nor devil-worshipers. We are a free 
and independent nation of producers. Instead of 
teaching our young men heathenism we give them a 
good education, which they combine with common 
sense and reason, and they are out in the world 



. 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 25 

climbing up the ladder of life before they are twenty- 
one years old. What is the result of all this ? 
Why, that to-day America is the proud mother of such 
great and good men as Washington, Jackson, Hous- 
ton, Clay, Webster, Longfellow, Fulton, Morse, the 
two Coopers, and I was about to say me, too, but 
modesty forbids. And as for women, why, we ex- 
cel the world from the beginning of Eve's nuptial 
festivities. 



CIVILIZATION'S POLISH. 

Civilization develops both the good and vile quali- 
ties of a human being. It doesn't change the animal 
radically — it only adds a polish to our good or evil 
traits. 



WHERE IS THE MONEY TO PAY FOR 
IT? 

A bad habit with some people is, that when you 
are about to start on a journey they will ask you to 
bring them this, that, or the other, and expect you, 
besides, to pay for it out of your own pocket, with 
the privilege of having it left on your hands provided 
it doesn't suit them. 



A GRAVE INDUSTRY. 

Since the introduction of the ornate casket, it is 
said that coffin robberies of the grave is not infre- 
quent. When a funeral takes place, the ghouls mark 
the grave, and. soon thereafter it is opened and the 



126 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

body removed from the coffin or casket and placed 
in the rough box covering. The casket is then taken 
away and sold for half its value. Stranger things than 
this have happened, but not often. 



NEVER LIVE LONG. . 

Those who accumulate money by their own hard 
work and industry never live long enough to enjoy it; 
it is those who inherit it that scatter the chink and 
live fast or long enough to enjoy the luxury it af- 
fords. 



THE BEST "D. H." 

The b est annual pass over all lines of travel, in- 
cluding hotel accommodations, is money. 



MYOPIA NOT IN IT. 

One never needs eye-glasses to see a friend. 



ABSENCE AND PRESENCE. 

Cynthiana truly says that, on some occasions, ab- 
sence of body is better than absence of mind. Trol- 
ley-car riders take notice. 



ALL THE ILLS IN THE CATALOGUE. 

Mistakes in life are usually paid for in regrets, sor- 
row, poverty, mental strain, loss of fortune, liberty, 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 27 

character, sickness, destruction, death and disgrace. 
It all depends upon what the mistake is and in 
some cases who made it. 



WHAT IS MEANT BY EVOLUTION. 

Evolution is the unfolding of truth and doctrines that 
lead up to a higher sphere of intelligence, honesty 
and sincerity of purpose. It is the theory of the one 
and the only true and practical Christianity. 



RACE PREJUDICE. 

Race prejudice or hatred is too broad in its scope 
to be truly Christian in its spirit. For in every clime 
there are some good and kind-hearted people. 



NO STOP-OVER PLACE. 

Hell may do long enough to change cars in, but it's 
a poor place to stop over. 



EN ROUTE. 

Man is transitory, en route to a better world, but 
many fail to appreciate this great truth. 



THE ORGAN TREE. 

In northwestern Africa grows a tree, upon the 
branches of which shoot up clusters of reeds, similar in 
formation to those of an ordinary street organ.and Which 
when played upon by the wind, become nature's musi. 



128 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

cal instrument, producing the most exquisite sounds, 
second only to the sweet vibrations of the harp-strings 
we hear of aloft. 



UNCOVERED HEADS. 

It was a custom among the Peruvians, both male 
and female, in the days gone by, to uncover the head 
at divine worship. Pity this custom isn't in vogue 
to-day among the female theatre-goers. 



WHAT TO DO UNDER UNCERTAIN CIR- 
CUMSTANCES. 

The best thing to do if you are broke is to get 
mended as soon as possible ; and above all things de- 
pend upon yourself to do your own mending. Every- 
one has as much as he can do to keep himself in re- 
pair. 



SELF-RELIANCE. 

Children should be taught this virtue from early 
childhood, and not be led astray with the false im- 
pression that they can rely upon some one else to 
take care of them. Self-reliance is true independ- 
ence. 



A DUCK-PICKING LAKE. 

Down in the Aztec region there is a lake of salt 
water, mixed with lime. When wild ducks [alight 
jn this lake, the water has the effect of causing all 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. I2£ 

the feathers to fall off, save a few pin feathers, leav- 
ing the bird looking like a society woman at a fash- 
ionable ball. 



THE HOG LEFT. 

A drunken man and a hog were lying down togeth" 
er on the roadside, when someone discovered them, 
and remarked, ' • Sure enough a man is known by the 
company he keeps. " The hog overheard the remark, 
and immediately got up and left. 



MANY WAYS TO BE POOR. 
Poor in pocket is only one of the many species of pov- 
erty. Man may be poor in health, poor in strength, 
poor in morals, in spirit and in character. There are 
many living to-day who are rich in pocket, but mean, 
poverty-stricken creatures in many other respects. 



UNCLE CHARLEY HAS MOVED. 

Uncle Charley Leonard occupied his body fifty-nine 
years four months and seven days, and at ten o'clock 
one bright night he moved into his new body in 
heaven. That same afternoon his friends and rela- 
tives buried the old one. 



DENTIST BIRDS. 
Down in Costa Rica, where alligators are as plenti- 
ful as rats in a barn, you can see them basking 
in the sun on the banks of the rivers with their 



130 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

long mouths wide open and little birds hopping 
around in them — the mouths of the alligators — 
picking bits of fish and shell from the teeth of 
these monsters, and leaving them as clean as 
if a dentist had done it. Another peculiarity of these 
birds and alligators is that they are friends, and when 
the alligators are asleep the birds keep watch over 
them, and in case of an enemy approaching the birds 
will fly into the eyes of the alligators and wake them 
up, to warn them of their danger. 



WILL POWER. 

The will-power of some people consists in waiting 
till the old man dies. 



LIVING ON THEIR WITS. 

No man can live on his wits alone. He must have 
people without any wits to practice upon in order to 
make his work pan out. 



WILD INFATUATION. 

Never let calf love run away with wisdom. Love 
something worthy of love ; don't waste your sweetness 
en a jimson weed. 



HEAVENLY INSTINCT OF AN INFANT. 

As an infant believes in its mother, and takes to 
her naturally, without the power to explain in words 
who or what she is, so it is with older persons, who 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 131 

believe in God, heaven and the life hereafter. They 
will grow up to realize in death the living truth of 
their natural belief. 



A SPARKLING GODDESS. 

The goddess of the prohibitionists is Water Loo. 



DON'T FEAR INJUSTICE. 

God will never hold anyone responsible for acts 
committed unconsciously. 



THE PROBLEM OF AGES. 

Civilization has always presented two great prob- 
lems—the one, how to get rich, and the other how 
to stay rich. In the meantime Father Time goes 
right along, borning and burying people just the same. 
What is it all about ? 



IN A BAD FIX. 

The man who loses his money is worse off than if 
he had never had any. In the latter case he is fully 
protected against such loss and the suffering in con- 
sequence. 



ONE OF THE MANY SOURCES OF 
LYING. 

Poverty will cause people to oxidize the truth 
about as much as anything else. A man will lie and 
scheme to make money, and after he has got it he 



132 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

will lie to keep from paying taxes on it or parting 
with it if he can lie out of it. Money makes liars 
of men. 



NOT ALL YOUR FRIENDS. 
Don't think everbody you talk with is your 
friend. 



EVERY MAN'S DUTY. 

It is man's duty to himself to be an honorary mem- 
ber in good standing among his fellow men. 



HOW WE GROW CRITICAL. 

The more intelligent man becomes, the more criti- 
cal he is of his fellow man. 



GOOD SPORTS TAINTED. 

What a pity that good, healthy sports, like foot 
and base ball, should be tainted with the gambler's 
touch. 



THAT WELCOME POSTMAN. 

Joy is the name of the heart's favorite postman, 
who brings cheering news to gladden us. Some- 
times his stock is low, and by the time it is divided 
up among the heirs it doesn't cut much of a figure. 
The biggest stock of imaginary joy is when two peo- 
ple contemplate marriage. Some manage to keep 
their stock up to the standard afterward by constantly 



sarbv coey's philosophy. 133 

adding new invoices of love and affection, while others 
let their stock run down, fail, dissolve partnership, 
and go out of business. 



TO GET OVER SUNDAY. 
Poor, miserable, unfortunate, improvident creatures 
are those who suffer the pangs of how to reach money 
enough to get over Sunday. 



LIFE NOT A FAILURE. 

Life is not a failure to anyone who is not a failure 
within himself, in thought, spirit and action. The 
future holds everything great and good, all that 
humanity dare aspire to, with the big silver lining be- 
yond. 



THE FOE OF DESPAIR. 

Hope kills despair and cheers the soul on to vic- 
tory. 



HUMILIATING CHARITY. 

It is a scourging of the whip-lash for anyone to pre- 
tend to do you a favor while they grumble and scowl 
as they do it. 



ACQUIRING HABITS. 
It is just as easy to acquire good habits as bad ones. 
Absorption has a great deal to do with the for- 
mation of one's character. Some people without 



134 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

educational opportunities absorb and form good 
habits from noting the manners and listening to the 
speech of others, while many with similar opportuni- 
ties fail to profit by them, absorbing only the bad 
and immoral side of life. Anybody who acquires 
a bad habit can exchange it for a good one, if he so 
wills. 



SIGN OF THE COWARD. 
A man who goes about bragging how many men 
he has abused and knocked out is a coward at heart. 



DON'T SUGAR-COAT IT. 

Brutal and cruel men can only be made to realize 
the awful character of their crimes by making them 
taste of their own bitter medicine. 



HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. 

There is no such thing as unbroken success. 
Never in the history of the world was there such an 
unbroken run, either national or personal. It is an 
old Greek proverb that the gods envy unbroken suc- 
cess. Take the history of the nations of the earth, 
and looking along the record line, you will find many 
broken places, some that were never mended, others 
on which an attempt at repairs have been made, with, 
in many places, the marks to show where the break 
was, as is the case with our own nation, whose line of 
success was cut over thirty years ago. It has taken 
a long time to mend it, and there are many places 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 135 

yet that need fixing badly. So it is with individuals, 
who have been successful in the work of the world, 
there always comes a time when a break occurs, 
often so serious that it is irreparable, and in many 
cases leaves the principal either a convict, a fugitive 
from justice, a lunatic, a suicide or a bankrupt. No 
commercial or banking house ever established but 
is bound to meet with a break some day, and so it goes 
on down the line, from a millionaire business man to 
a peanut vender, they are sure to fail if they keep it 
up long enough. So also is it with the professions, 
statescraftmen and great rulers — there comes a time 
when the leaves begin to fall from the laurels they 
have won. Greed has had much to do in bringing about 
failure, as has overweening ambition. The great 
point lies in just when and where to stop and rest 
under the shade of the tree of success. 



WHERE WAGES ARE NEVER REDUCED. 

The employes of Satan were never known to go on 
a strike on account of any reduction of the wages of 
sin. The devil never reduces the salaries of his work- 
ers, who are well paid, by sickness, suffering, im- 
prisonment and death. 1 



AFTER THE FITFUL FEVER. 

A spendthrift son imagines he gets more pleasure 
out of squandering the money left him than his par- 
ents did in accumulating it, and he can do it in less 
than one quarter the time, and then live in mental 



I36 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

and physical hell and torment the rest of his life. 
Moral. Avoid evil associates, bad habits and a loaf- 
er's life of idleness, vice and disgrace. 



A CHILD'S PRAYER. 

' ' Oh, dear mamma and papa, teach me only that 
which I should practice and will be a blessing to me 
when I am grown up. For my sake and yours, too, 
Amen. " 



PERSONAL DEVILS. 
There are men and women who are personal devils. 



LAWYERS AND RIP-SAWS. 
What one lawyer nails down another rips up, and 
gets paid for doing the rip act, otherwise the law- 
yers couldn't live. 



WE ARE JUDGED AS WE APPEAR. 

If a person appears low and common, and uses vul- 
gar expressions, he is sure to be classed as low grade. 
We are judged, stamped, marked and labeled ac- 
cording to our conduct and language. 



HOW TO GET TO CHINA IN TWELVE 

HOURS. 

Taking for granted that the earth revolves once 

every twenty-four hours, all you would have to 

do to reach China in twelve hours would be to go up 






BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 37 

in a balloon, wait suspended in the air, and China 
would roll around to you. If this isn't so, then the 
earth doesn't move on an axil-tree — that's all. 



AGE OF THE WORLD. 

In my opinion, this planet on which we live was 
17,839,528 years, 1 1 months and 14 days old up to the 
hour this book went to press. These figures are 
based upon the estimated time it would require to 
construct a planet of the present dimensions. 



THEY USED TO BE LONELY. 

In times gone by, the lakes, rivers and seas, with 
their families of fishes, were lonely, with nothing to 
break the monotony, which continued for ages, until 
man appeared, who built vessels to sail over them, 
catch and eat the fish, and change their monotonous 
life into one of commerce, industry, pleasure and oc- 
casional disaster to man and his ship. 



MAN'S INGRATITUDE— DOGS' FIDELITY. 

Ovid Santos was a trusted young man, brought up 
in a business house from a boy, at three dollars a 
week, to that of cashier, at three thousand dollars 
a year. Through virtue of his position, he robbed 
the firm of twenty thousand dollars, and is now a 
convicted thief, in State Prison, disgraced forever. 
If he had been a dog he never would have turned 
against his friend and benefactor. The trouble with 



I38 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

human beings is that they are human. If they were 
domestic animals they would be more universally re- 
liable, companionable and trustworthy. 



STANDARD OF INTELLIGENCE. 

The intelligence of fifty per cent, of humanity is ten 
degrees below that of a horse. People with good 
horse-sense are scarce in comparison to their number. 



OBJECT LESSONS. 

Man condemns his own immorality and wrong-do- 
ing only when he sees it enacted by others. 



DOING UNNECESSARY THINGS. 

The main source of man's suffering, loss and unhap- 
piness lies in doing things he don't have to. 



A HYBRID CRITIC. 

A hybrid critic is envious and jealous, and assumes 
to know everything from Alpha to Omaha ; but, in 
fact, don't know anything except what he has bor- 
rowed on imagination for security. These tear- 
downs and never-build-ups are menace-barnacles 
on the ship of life, retarding the progress of civiliza- 
tion, education, sociability and good companionship. 
These bores will interject insensible words, erroneous 
statements, direct contradictions and sham arguments 
into a discussion, fly away from the question, side- 
track, puff and blow, assume wisdom, take excep- 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 39 

tions and dispute everything said and done, but rarely- 
express a sensible thought, or broach an original idea. 
Good, sensible criticism, founded on common sense 
and reason, is refining, instructive and worth listen- 
ing to, but a hybrid critic is a last year's crows nest, 
and nothing in it. 



KICKING AGAINST THEIR OWN 
DOINGS. 

"As you make your bed, so you shall lie," is a 
maxim of old. Some people make their beds of 
thorns and bolster their heads with bags of thistles. 
No wonder they complain of their condition. 



A BOSS FOOL. 

The most foolish of fools is he who thinks he can 
fool nature. 



LOOK. WITHIN ! 
Many people look for honor in others, but never 
once stop to investigate whether they've a trace of 
the article themselves. 



FORTUNES OF THE FUTURE. 

The more advanced civilization becomes the harder 
it is to earn a living, and fewer are the opportunities 
to become wealthy. Bed rock has been reached and 
scarcely any color or metal in it. Things have set- 
tled down to a daily toil and nose-to-the-grindstone 
basis. The natives of the wilds of Africa are far bet- 



146 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

ter off, because they don't have to work for a living, 
but they will, if civilization keeps on. What a pity 
these happy creatures should be disturbed in their 
blissful state. It would be cruelty to civilize them. 



BOOMS. 

The worst cyclone that could strike a city or town 
is a boom. Booms are wind-bag gambling schemes, 
with only one chance in fifty to win, and a very slim 
one at that. You go into a town that is just getting 
over a boom epidemic, and everybody and thing have 
a deathlike still on, and act as though they were 
struggling through a bad case of small pox. It takes 
a town and its people years to get over boom effects, 
and many people never recover financially. 



LATTER DAY SLAVERY. 

There are ten times more white slaves in America 
to-day than there were blacks ones before the war. 
The only difference is that the modern white slave 
has to work harder, live poorer and pay his or her 
own expenses, while the negro slaves were far hap- 
pier, for they were well provided with good homes 
and good fare, free of every expense, including doc- 
tor's bills, whether they worked or not. 



COLUMBUS' UBIQUITY. 
No man that ever lived has come up to the record 
of Columbus for having been born in more different 
places at the same time, according to the many reports 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 141 

in circulation. And his many deaths and burial 
places equal in number his birthplaces. Judging 
from these various reports, Columbus was about the 
worst-scattered human being, from start to finish, that 
ever ran the race of life. The achievements of Col- 
umbus were never equalled, for the reason that when 
the world was organized and put into shape to be util- 
ized by man, there was only one America, and we've 
got that, thanks to Christopher. 



DON'T DO IT. 

Never size a man up as an ignoramus because he 
happens to be green in some things. 



COME TO STAY. 
Success comes to him who hustles, is patient and 
takes care of his hustlings when he bags 'em. 



A CURIOSITY SHOP. 

The world is a grand old museum and curiosity 
shop, open day and night, Sundays included, in 
which the Lord of all good and the lord of all evil 
have permanent exhibitions, and both well patroniz- 
ed. 



CAT MOTHER TO THE RAT. 

While fishing one day I caught a young muskrat 
on my hook, and took it home and introduced it to 
an old black cat we had. Tabby adopted it as her 
kitten, and cared for it as her own, Two weeks 



142 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

after we gave a christening party in honor of me oc- 
casion and adopted the muskrat as a full-fledged 
member of the household, with all rights and privi- 
leges. I danced the old Virginny Reel with Susie 
Patton, who wore a beautiful calico dress, which she 
made herself, and I believe her, because she told me 
so. 



NO LOAFING. 

We must not sit idly by and expect the Lord to 
take care of us. Prayer alone without work will 
never accomplish anything. Man must work his pas- 
sage to success in this world. 



WHAT SOME OF OUR GREAT MEN 
WERE IN THE BEGINNING. 

Aristotle, the celebrated philosopher, was a shoe- 
maker by trade, who studied at night to acquire his 
knowledge. 

- Arkwright.the inventor of the carding spinning ma- 
chine, was a barber. 

Achilles, the most heroic of Grecian generals, and 
the hero of the siege of Troy, was a shepherd boy, 
who took care of the vast flocks of sheep belonging to 
his father. 

iEsop, the Euclid of moral science, was born of 
parents who were slaves in Phrygia, and he was sold 
as one, at Samos, to a liberal master, who, upon learn- 
ing his talents, gave him his freedom. 

Burns, the Scottish poet, and one of the most origi- 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 43 

nal geniuses who ever lived, was a farm laborer. His 
memory is cherished and beloved by all mankind to- 
day. 

Bolivar, the George Washington of South America, 
1 and founder of three republics, was a farmer. 

Caesar, Julius, was born in the year ioo B. C, of 
the ancient Julian family. In youth he was a 
spendthrift and afterward an intriguer. 

Cicero, Marcus, was born in the year 105 B. C, of 
humble parentage, and was educated by learned 
Greeks. 

Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of America, 
was born at Genoa, Italy, in 1447. His family fol- 
lowed the sea, and he followed the family-failing. 

Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, was born in 
the year 550 B. C. He taught the people to sub- 
mit to Providence, love their neighbors and res- 
train their angry passions. In early life he was a 
tea-planter. 

Cromwell, Oliver, was born in 1599. In early life 
the Protector and King-killer was a farmer. 

Demosthenes, the Greek orator, was a sheep 
herder. 

Diogenes, who went about at midday with a lighted 
lamp, looking for an honest man, was a plumber. 

Euclid, the author of Elements of Geometry, was 
a gardener. 

Fulton, Robert, the inventor of steam navigation, 
was in early life a farmer, and studied engineering. 

Josephus, the learned Jew, was the son of a clothes 
dealer. After a youth of study he became a leader 



144- BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

against the Romans, but being taken prisoner he cast 
his fortunes with them, and was present at the siege 
and destruction of Jerusalem. He returned to Rome, 
where he wrote his various books. 

Guillotine, the inventor of that merciless instru- 
ment of death which bears his name, was a French 
physician. 

Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the 
blood, was a druggist. 

Herschel, the great astronomer, was a musician. 

Isaiah, a Jewish poet, was a pedlar. 

Kant, Immanuel, the logician, was in early life a 
basket-maker. 

Luther, Martin, the German reformer, was a poor 
orphan boy, and was educated at the university of 
Wittenburg by charity. 

Moses, a Jewish priest of Osiris, who headed the 
Jews on their expulsion from Egypt, was a shepherd 
boy. 

Ossian, an Irish poet, was a son of Fingal, a Gaelic 
chief. 

Phidias, the celebrated sculptor, was a stonecutter 
by trade. 

Shakespeare was a son of a wool stapler, and used 
to hold horses at the door of the theatre. 

Bishop Taylor was the son of a barber, and died at 
Lisbon in 1647. 

George Washington, first President of the United 
States, was a farmer. 

Mohammed the Good, was a farmer, and used to 
milk his goats and mend his own sandals. He was 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 14$ 

just, merciful and impartial, and devoted to the 
poor. 

Thus we learn from this brief synopsis of the his- 
tory of these great men, that good qualities may be 
inherited, but true greatness can only be acquired 
by hard work, self-reliance, principle and patient . 
The fact that a young man is the son of his father, 
bears his name and inherits his money", doesn't make 
him great. His greatness lies in himself and his acts, 



IT ALL DEPENDS. 

Knowledge and wealth are both valuable acquisi- 
tions, for those who know how to use them rightfully, 
without which they are really and truly a source of 
annoyance. 



NEVER OUT WHILE YOU'RE IN. 

No human being is ever out of danger as long as he 
is in this world. 



MODESTY AND BRAVERY. 

A brave man never exhibits bravado. The more a 
man is a man the more modest he is. 



THE GOOD OLD-TIME DARKEY. 

The genuine Southern darkey is as good to-day as 
he was before the war ; many of these former slaves 
now own their own homes and bits of land or are en- 
gaged in business, and often consult ' * old Massa " 
about their affairs, But, like the rest of mankind, 



146 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

they will soon pass from the earth, never more to re- 
turn, and future generations will know them only by 
tradition. But the new generation which has sprung 
up since the war is not to be compared with the old, 
now so rapidly following poor old Massa to ' ' the cold, 
cold ground." Generations yet to come will sing 
4 ■ dem good old songs we used to sing, long time 
ago." 



ROOM LEFT FOR IMPROVEMENT. 

When bad people quit this earth they leave room 
for improvement ; their absence commences the im- 
provement boom. 



PHYSICAL EQUALITY. 

The inventor of the six-shooter placed all men on 
an equality physically. 



BORROWED MERIT. 

A man who has to refer to the part of the country 
he is from as a recommendation, exists on borrowed 
merit. A man should be a man, independent of 
where he was born or hails from. 



Observance of law is liberty. 



IS THE MOON BROKE? 

Astrologers say that the moon is busted, and is bor- 
rowing its light from the sun. The man in the moon 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 147 

says the astrologers are juggling with truth, and that 
he doesn't owe old Sol a cent and never borrowed as 
much as a tallow dip from him. 



HOADERS OF MONEY. 
The foreign elements in this country are the people 
who economize and lay by money. The American 
element is both earner and spender, and keeps money 
in circulation. 



A LAZY DEFINITION. 

A lazy person is one who contentedly waits for 
something to do, but who is in no hurry to get at it- 



POOR TENSILE STRENGTH. 

Lies are the worst material with which to build up 
one's life and character. A house that rests on pil- 
lars of falsehood is sure to fall upon its builder. 



THE GRAND TRANSFORMATION. 

The halt, the maimed, the blind, the deaf and the 
sick will be restored to health and form when death 
transfers them to their new body, which will be free 
from all ailments. 



VINDICATION OF LABOR. 

Capital is the result of labor, therefore labor should 
take precedence over capital. God created man, aric} 



148 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

man, through his labor, created capital. Therefore, 
man, representing labor, by his right as creator of 
capital, should be on top, and capital, being a second- 
ry matter, should be held in abeyance to man. As 
the father is to the child, so is labor to capital. 



A hog abroad lives like a pig at home. 



WHEN THE TICKER CHUCKLES. 
How the stock-ticker chuckles and buzzes to itself 
every now and then, as the speculative moths are be- 
ing taken in and wound up on that interminable 
paper ribbon, so innocent-looking and frail, but strong 
enough to wring blood from a giant's heart. 



WHICH MODE IS YOURS? 

The love of God is wisdom, the fear of God is com- 
pulsory good behavior. 



THE FEAR OF RIDICULE. 

The fear of ridicule often prompts men to deeds of 
victory and success. 



RELIGION OF THE PLUMBER. 

Everything here is planned for man's good; 
If the pipes didn't bust, the plumber would. 



GIRLS AND PRESENTS. 

The fellow that loves the hardest and gives the 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 149 

girl the most presents doesn't always get her. Moral. 
Save your love and money for the girl when she be- 
comes your wife, for it often happens with man that 
he spends all his love and money on his courtship, 
and has none left to go housekeeping with. 



SHE IS AFTER HIM. 
Woman was made after man, and she has been 
after him ever since. 



GULLIBLE GAMBLER'S FAITH. 

The faith of the gambler and speculator is on a 
par with chasing a wild goose to catch an ostrich 
feather. 



KNIGHTS OF LABOR. 

The laboring masses, unified, can elect their own 
representatives to office, from President of the United 
States down to constable. Time's compass is begin- 
ning to point that way. 



NOT IN THE THREE R'S. 
Because a man doesn't know how to play cards is 
no sign that his education has been neglected. 



THE MODERN GAME. 

Ticker roulette is an improved wheel, at which the 
player bets on stocks, produce, mines, horse races, 



150 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

base ball, foot 'ball, elections, etc. Instead of yell- 
ing "Keno," the player now says " Oh, h — !" 



IF I WAS IN A SINKING SHIP 
I would do my praying in trying to keep from 
drowning, and help others. The man who gets left 
to tell the story is a man after my own heart. 



BE CAREFUL OF SUCCESS. 
The smallest kind often swells the hardest head. 
Be careful of success. 



PICTURE WRITING. 
The art of picture writing by the sketch artist of 
to-day was never finer in the history of the world. 



ACTUAL NEEDS. 

If people drank liquor only when they actually 
needed it, they wouldn't average over one drink a 
week, and two-thirds of them wouldn't average over 
one drink a month. 



HE SAW MILLIONS IN IT. 

Sam Falkner had a good business and was making 
money, until one day a fellow come along with a pro- 
cess for cannonizing artillery men proof against shot 






BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. I 5 I 

and shell. Sam became visionized and saw millions 
in the thing, sold out his business and invested the 
proceeds in it. He is now looking for a job and liv- 
ing off his father-in-law until the looking season is 
over. Moral. — Never give up one good thing before 
you have a firm hold on another. 



SEEING AND GRASPING. 

Seeing a thing, and grasping it, is a different mat- 
ter. How often one goes to a play, or sees an object, 
or reads an article, and that's all. They never absorb 
any knowledge of what they see or read; they belong 
to the time killer's club. 



HOW TO SHOULDER A LOSS. 

Losses should be shouldered with renewed energy 
and a determination to recover, without fail, no «mat- 
ter if every drop of milk has been spilt, and not a cow 
in sight. 



ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA. 
If what killed Ananias and Sapphira was in vogue 
to-day it would depopulate the country. 



CONSOLATION. 

Consolation is the balm of life. If you have made 
a bad trade, or have bad debts, do like the old farmer 
did who drove his hogs eighty miles to market. Just 



152 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

before this old philosopher arrived at the market town, 
everyone of his porkers was stricken with cholera and 
died. He said there was one consolation — he had the 
company of the hogs. 



A SNAP SHOT. 

He is a good marksman who knows a good oppor- 
tunity when he sees it, and can hit it for all it is 
worth. 



We are liable to get most anything but rich. 



WHAT IS SCIENCE? 

Christianity going ahead, working out and develop- 
ing *the problems of life, for the practical benefit of 
humanity, while religion is straggling two thousand 
years behind the times, wrangling in a wilderness of 
superstition and loud-mouthed discussions over small 
doctrinal points 



Hulk parents produce barnacle children. 



HOW WHISTLING STARTED. 

When the garden of Eden was foreclosed on, and 
Adam and Eve were out in the street, with nothing 
on but style, Adam says to Eve— "How are we to 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 53 

get along now?" Eve replied: "I guess we'll have 
to whistle for a living." 



SUNDAY AND WEEK-DAY MANNERS. 

I wouldn't go a second-hand postage stamp on a 
man who sins all week and prays all Sunday. 



HOW MANY WILL TURN OUT GOOD. 

Excess of births over deaths is a good thing, pro- 
vided the newcomers turn out all right. If they don't, 
it would have been better had they never been born. 



SHORT ON ABILITY. 

Some people have the faculty of being able to start 
a thing all right, then their star begins to wane, and 
usually sets on failure. They seem to be fated never 
to carry anything to final completion nor establish 
success. Their star shines brightest in the beginning. 



KEEP THE PEACE AND BE CIVIL. 
It is a hard job for a person suffering with the 
toothache to keep the peace and be civil. It takes 
time, together with a little cold steel, and a dentist, 
to cure the toothache while you wait, so it will stay 
cured. 



THE ORDER OF THE DAY. 

Experience teaches us that money is the order of 
the day. Then, where is the use of creating a sensa- 



154 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

tion, or getting a big name up about this, that or the 
other, unless there is something in it. The tendency 
of mankind is toward cash. 



WHERE A GUARD IS NEEDED. 

A good heart needs a guard around it, to keep off 
the impostors who seek to prey upon generosity. 



NOT WARRANTED. 

Mankind is not warranted ; we must take it as we 
find it. 



LOPS 'EM OFF. 

Experience cuts down man's overestimate of him- 
self and his ability. 



ENCHANTMENT. 

Man often ventures his opinions and money where 
he wouldn't go himself. .. 



VERTIGO. 

1 People who drink liquor are more liable to vertigo 
than sober-minded citizens. 



THE INVISIBLE THE MOST POWERFUL. 

Life, the spirit, is what causes man to move, act 
and create, yet this great power is invisible to the eye. 
The power of God, which causes the sun, moon and 






BARBY COEV'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 55 

stars to shine, the elements to produce rain, hail, snow 
and to bring forth flowers and fruits, is invisible. 
The time will come when we will know and realize 
what this great power is and all about it. 



OUT OF SIGHT. 

Some people dress and jewelize themselves out of 
sight, so that the public sees the adornment. The 
subject itself passes unnoticed. 



TWO KINDS OF COURAGE. 

Courage is prompted by spirit. Courage to do 
wrong is fostered by an evil spirit, while courage to 
do good is prompted by a Christian spirit, which ad- 
vises us to do right at all times, though the wrong 
may be tempting. 



COMPLAINT OF FOREIGNERS. 

The general complaint with foreigners in regard to 
their endeavors to learn pure English, such as is 
spoken in America, is that our words have so many 
different meanings. The trouble with these people 
is that they fail in the beginning to grab the root of 
the tree of liberty and industry, which teaches ex- 
pansion or economy, as the case may be, in the 
usage of things in general to the best advantage. 
Hence we have done more in the few short years of 
our independence, with fewer tools to do it with, than 
any other nation on the face of the earth. For ex- 
ample, during our war for independence we cut the 



\$6 barby coey's philosophy. 

trees, hauled the logs to the water's edge, and built 
a craft that cleaned out every gunboat the enemy had 
within forty miles of New England's coast line; and 
we did all this inside of three months, our motive 
power and tools being four yoke of oxen, six chop- 
ping axes, five augers, a couple of old hand-saws, 
and two claw-hammers, one with but a single claw. 
How is that for economy and industry ? They could 
no more do that in any other country than they could 
fly. So it is with the words in our language — we 
make one word do for many things. Take the word 
waiting, for example. You hear of people every day 
waiting for the wheel of fortune to turn their way 
(they are still waiting); others waiting for a job 
promised them if they would pull for the candidate, 
who got there (but they didn't, and are still waiting) ; 
others waiting to have their salaries raised, but who 
got raised out of their boots instead, and are now 
waiting for other jobs at half figures ; not a few wait- 
ing for money owing them ; others are waiting to get 
money they owe, while the sheriff is waiting and 
watching the uneven game, ready to pounce wher- 
ever a sign of weakness shows up. 



A HARD SEAT. 

The anxious seat is about the most tiresome and 
the hardest thing to sit on, next to a pointed rock. 



FACTS VERSUS CHIROGRAPHY. 
It is a notable fact that all great writers were poor 
chirographers. Take Euclid, Plato and Horace Gree- 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 1 57 

ley for example, they couldn't read their own hand- 
writing after it got cold. It makes the hair stand on 
end of a red-headed type-writer to read mine at the 
closing of this nineteenth century. 



EXPERTS FOR REVENUE ONLY. 
Conflicting theories of experts is considered good 
ground for a pardon for anyone who has been con- 
victed through such evidence. 



WHAT FOOLS SOME MEN ARE. 
Just think of Mike Chilling, with a wife and six 
children to support, paying seventy-five dollars for a 
watch chain, and only getting sixty dollars a month 
salary. Talk about women being extravagant and 
wasteful, they aren't in it along with some men. 



DISSOLVING VIEWS. 
Each day's sunset is a dissolving view of time gone, 
never to return. 



HEARTLESS FASCINATION. 
A dishonest heart often beats beneath a fascinating 
exterior. 



GOOD MEDICINE. 
Some people go through life without ever as much 
as cracking a smile. They are afflicted with a lack 



I58 DARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

of comfort toward themselves or anybody else. We 
all come across many people in trouble, who need 
only to be comforted by kind words, seasoned with 
mirth and merriment. The sickly especially need 
the joyful effects of the bright side of the life they so 
pathetically endeavor to cling to, often beyond hope. 



THE LESSON OF HARD TIMES. 

Hard times, panics and stringency in finance teaches 
us the importance of frugality, economy and saving 
when times are good. 



BRAINS AND INTELLIGENCE. 
Everybody has a brain, or a place to carry it; but 
many brain-bags are empty. 



NO PROPRIETORSHIP. 

We own nothing in this world. We just have the 
use of a few things, and only for a short time at that. 



EQUALITY IN LOVE. 

It is impossible for any man to be equally in love 
with two or more girls at the same time. 



TRANSMIGRATION. 

Spirits are transmigrant. Criminals are imbued 
with the spirits of beasts of the forests. Then again 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 59 

we find horses, cattle and dogs imbued with the spirit 
of kind-hearted human beings. 



THE RIVER OF OUTLETS. 

The Croton River, in New York State, has more 
outlets than any other river in the world. 



EFFECT OF BAD TIMES. 
I have seen times in my life when I had such long 
and hard runs of luck that I believe that if the United 
States of America had been turned into a lottery 
prize, and I. owned every ticket, I wouldn't draw a 
shingle off the Capitol in Washington : 

Go through what I have gone, 

And feel what I have felt; 
Bear what I have borne, 

And smell what I have smelt. 



HERE—NOT HEREAFTER. 

Hell is here on earth ; and it is anything that hurts. 
There is no hell hereafter. 



IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE TOO MUCH OF 
ANYTHING. 
Who would have believed, fifty years ago, that it 
would be possible to see silver so cheap that it would 
become an international question whether tin cups 
should be made out of it, yet such is the case. Silver has 



l6o BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

become so plentiful that in many instances it doesn't 
pay to mine it. Nature teaches us that there is a 
Jimit to all things. Too much riches becomes a bur- 
den to the possessor, who usually leads an unhappy 
life and is now-a-days in mortal fear of cranks and a 
premature death. The happiest people are those 
without the spirit of the hog, who know when they 
are well off and are satisfied. Content is worth more 
than all the gold ever mined, though it is customary 
and very convenient to have a little dust in your 
pocket, all the same. 



A SCARCE ARTICLE. 

A friend in need is a hard thing to und when 
wanted. 



DON'T BE TOO "FLIP." 
It isn't good policy to be indiscriminately saucy, 
as there is danger of coming in contact with another 
fool of similar flippancy. 



"TIME AND TIDE." 
Everything has its time and course to pursue, and 
it is bound to take its own time in doing it, whether 
it suits us or not. 



THE GREATER WORKING UPON THE 
LESS. 

The secret of success, in many instances, is the 
greater mind working upon the less. In order to do 



bARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. l6l 

this.one must first ascertain just how much he knows, 
and then find some one who knows less, which is some- 
times rather difficult. 



GOOD EFFECTS OF STUDIOUS THOUGHT. 

The most reverent and liberal-minded are those 
who have studiously thought their way through the 
problems of life. 



COSTLY MONUMENTS. 

If General Washington or General Giant were to 
appear on earth and see the costly stone monuments 
already erected to them, and in course of construc- 
tion, they would change the plans of the architects, 
and say, "Do not waste money on piles of stone, 
which will do no one any good, but, if you wish to ex- 
press your gratitude for our acts while on earth, erect, 
instead, colleges and other institutions of learning for 
your boys and girls, as worthier monuments to our 
memory." The money necessary to build the Grant 
monument would erect and endow a Grant College 
for our children, thousands of whom would be a liv- 
ing blessing to him, to themselves, and their country, 
which he so nobly defended and preserved. The 
Washington monument cost one million one hundred 
and thirty thousand dollars, and not one person in a hun- 
dred who looks at that stack of stone ever thinks of 
Washington or his achievements. But suppose that 
enormous sum of money, which was spent on this 
modern pyramid, had been invested as the author 



l62 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

suggests, how many thousands of noble men and 
women would have been the glorious result ? Let us 
build a Grant Monument College. 



HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

The most holy people are not always the most 
righteous. 



NOT WORTH DOING WRONG FOR. 

All the gold and precious stones in the world aren't 
worth the misery induced by the sin of stealing. 



NEEDS CONFIRMATION. 

Man's conduct needs endorsement by his heart and 
conscience before it can really be accepted even by 
himself. 



WHERE WOMAN IS RIGHT. 

I don't blame any woman for objecting to live with 
a drunken brute of a husband. 



WHERE THE POOR ARE BETTER OFF 
THAN THE RICH. 

People who have been poor all their lives don't 
mind being made a little poorer. But those well-off- 
at-one-time folks, who, by a sudden turn of fortune's 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 163 

wheel, have lost wealth and luxury, and have had to 
come down to hard pan, suffer indescribable pangs. 



"DON'T BE A CLAM." 

A man who can't take a drink without getting 
drunk is a fool for drinking. 



OFF DAYS. 
There are days when everything seems to go wrong. 
No particular reason for it, but it goes just the same. 



HARD TO FORGET A CHILD. 

No matter how disobedient, wayward or ungrateful 
a child may be, a mother can never efface it from 
her heart's memory. 



THE GUN WENT OFF ACCIDENTALLY. 

While out duck-hunting one day I stumbled over 
an alligator, and in the scramble for first place with 
the 'gator, my gun was accidentally discharged, crip- 
pling a wild goose a hundred yards away. I pick- 
ed up the poor goose, took it home and doctored 
it ; finally it got well and became a regular pet around 
the house, never attempting to leave us; until one 
day last Spring, while a flock of wild geese came fly- 
ing north, our pet gave a squawk, flapped her wings, 
and joined her comrades, We thought no more 



164 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

about it after a time than that our pet was gone for 
good. But what was our surprise, a few months 
later, when one day we heard the cackling of a flock 
of wild geese overhead, and looking up, saw them cir- 
cling round and round, coming nearer and nearer, till at 
last there lit in the yard, in front of the house, seven of 
the prettiest wild geese you ever laid eyes on. One 
came running into the house, and proved to be our 
pet goose, which had returned with a flock of young 
ones she had hatched out, raised, and brought to us 
as a token of appreciation for our kindness to her 
when she was wounded. They all took a rest in the 
yard after their long and tiresome journey, and en- 
joyed a good meal of corn and water, and from that 
time on they became full-fledged members of our 
poultry family. 



WHERE IGNORANCE IS PREFERABLE. 

Shrewdness, tainted with dishonesty, is more de- 
plorable than rank ignorance. 



TALENT AND PURPOSE. 

Whatever your talent is, fit it to the purpose, and 
your success is assured. 



CONQUEST OF MEXICO. 
The conquest of Mexico, by Cortez, was none other 
than a cruel, inhuman, outrageous and bloodthirsty 



EARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 16$ 

massacre of an innocent and inoffensive people — the 
Aztecs. The stories of human sacrifice among these 
people were exaggerated by Cortez, as an excuse to 
torture and butcher thousands of human beings, the 
main purpose being robbery. During the Inquisition 
in Spain, from whence Cortez came, he learned his 
lesson. 



"TO LET." 
The three principal auxiliaries to mankind are 
woman, music and money. Abolish these and the 
world will be a castle in the air, plastered all over 
with bills reading, " To Let." 



A storm indicates that calmness is just behind. 



ON-LOOKERS' WISDOM. 

Spectators are often more wise, in their own esti- 
mation, about what is going on than those engaged in 
the performance. 



WILD RUMORS. 

There are always plenty of water-logged people 
ready to believe the wildest rumors until they are 
run down and disproved. 



THE SALVATION ARMY. " 

The aim and purpose of the Salvation Army is 
good. It introduces the light of Christianity to a 



l66 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

modern dark-age element, which otherwise would 
never hear the name of the Saviour mentioned or 
ever know that such a being had existed. 



SUGAR NEWS. 

Sugar news isn't always sweet news. Sam Tom- 
linson bet fifteen hundred dollars, the other day, on 
sugar-ticker roulette, and now he's just so much out. 
No wonder he feels sour. 



WHaT is progress? 

Progress is a leading chain of thought, taken up and 
carried forward in succession by man, as he appears 
and disappears from the face of the earth. 



A POCKET ROOF. 

A good financial roof over one's head is an insur- 
ance policy that can be carried in the pocket. 



DON'T YOU FORGET IT I 

The most humble human being in this world can 
become one among the most distinguished guests in 
Heaven. 



THE AFTER-EFFECTS OF SIN. 

The after-effects of man's sins leave him feeling 
miserable, mean and unclean, till he has bathed in a 
strong solution of reformation and resolution never 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 167 

to do wrong again. Then is when he feels refreshed, 
healthy and pure in mind and heart, and a genial 
companion to himself. 



WHEN TO REGRET. 
The time to regret doing a thing is before you do 



it. 



LIFE NOT A BURDEN. 

No man's life is a burden. It is the wrong impres- 
sions of life and its future that cause worry. 



PECULIARLY CONSTITUTED. 

Some people are so constituted as to be able to re- 
ceive any number of favors from others; but they 
never return any. 



MRS. COLUMBUS. 

While we are devoting so much to the memory of 
Christopher Columbus, why not be liberal and divide up 
the honors with Mrs. Columbus, the mother of the 
great discoverer ? If anything she was more deserv- 
ing of gratitude than her son, for the reason that she 
discovered Columbus, while he discovered America and 
America discovered us, and we discovered a way by 
which we have produced the greatest nation the stars 
ever shone upon. We are drifting into a bad habit of 
partiality in honoring the memory of great men, ex- 
clusive of great and noble women, who, in reality, are 



l68 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

the founders of all great men. Why is it that every- 
where we see monuments erected to the memory of 
men, but rarely see one to the memory of women? 
The. only reason I can give is that man is so easily for- 
gotten that it is necessary to build a reminder for him, 
while woman is a noble monument within herself, 
and needs no reminder ; though she may pass away, 
she still lives in our memory, because she is our 
mother. 



A FARMER'S EXPECTATIONS. 

A farmer took a load of turnips to town to sell, and 
on his way back he met another farmer, who asked 
him how he made out with his turnips. He said he 
didn't do as well as he expected, and thought he 
wouldn't when he started out. 



LIKE AN INFANT. 

Business is like an infant, and needs careful nursing. 
The only difference is that the child, if it lives, will 
grow old enough to take care of itself, while busi- 
ness never can take care of itself. It requires nursing 
and careful attention every day of its existence, 
otherwise it will fade away and die. 



ALWAYS SOMETHING TO BE THANK- 
FUL FOR. 

We should be thankful that our condition in life, 
whatever it is, is no worse. I have seen the time 
when I was glad to get a penny banana, and was more 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. . 169 

than thankful the price wasn't two cents, in which 
case I would have had to go without the filling fruit. 



CRUELTY TO NAILS. 

Whenever any crookedness or wrong-doing is ex- 
posed, the exposer is usually credited with having hit 
the nail on the head. Just why an innocent and 
useful article like a nail should be dragged into every 
scandal is more than I can tell. Maybe some of those 
lawyers who conduct cross-examinations can. 



MERMAIDS AND SEA COWS. 
In olden times the mermaids used to milk the sea- 
cows and supply the ancient mariners with fresh 
milk. 



TURN EVERYTHING TO GOOD ACCOUNT. 

Turn accidents and mishaps to good account. If a 
thing has gone wrong, to go wrong yourself won't help 
the cause. Two wrongs don't make one right. If a 
train is behind time, getting mad and worked up over 
it won't help it to arrive any sooner. 



THEY MEANT ALL RIGHT. 

It is no uncommon thing to hear of a person being 
thrown into prison for taking money which he meant 
to pay back. What an awful thing to do, in the face 
of sure ruin of character. Detectives are to-day 



i?6 a BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

shadowing evil-doers, who vainly imagine no one knows 
of the crimes they have tried to cover up by forgery and 
false entries, thus committing crime to hide crime. 



THE DEVIL'S GENEROSITY. 
Those who like to borrow trouble get it in large 
doses from the Devil, who is ever ready to contribute 
to the suffering of mankind. 



OBJECTIVE CHARITY 

Is where anything is given or something is done in 
the name of charity, the donor or doer of which ex- 
pects to make double the amount in return. 



A VALUABLE EQUIPMENT. 

A young man's capital on starting in life is.his sobri- 
ety, honesty, good reputation and energy. These 
accomplishments are easy to acquire, and no person 
need be without them, as they are to be had for the 
asking. 



DO YOU WANT TO LIVE YOUR LIFE 
AGAIN? 
Judging from the rapid strides that science has 
made in the past fifty years, it is only a question of 
time when it will be possible to extract the life of a 
human being, and preserve it, while the body is 
made over anew, as it was in its teens, and then re- 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. i?I 

store it to life again. This will be cheerful news to 
those who would like to live their lives over again. 



THE JEWEL TIME OF LIFE. 
Our childhood days are the jewel times of life. 



THE JUNK TIME OF LIFE. 

This horrible time of life is when we become old 
and penniless, a piece of living junk, which nobody- 
cares anything for. Moral. — Take care of the future, 
by saving up the pennies while you are young. 



STAY ABILITY. 

The bibber's craving for drink generally stays with 
him, while his money, health and character leave 
him. 



THE KING IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE 
KING! 

The end of one thing is an important period in the 
history of the beginning of another. 



A PEACEFUL SOLUTION OF THE FISH- 
ERY DISPUTE. 

It seems to me that a good way to settle the fish- 
ery dispute would be to annex to this powerful and 
prosperous Republic the Maritime Provinces of Can- 



t?2 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

ada, and Canada, too, along with the Badger. Why 
not ? Their natural business associations are with us. 
their markets are here, they want our products, and 
we belong to each other. Annexation is the natural 
and the shortest way to settle the question. 



NEVER BE TOO CERTAIN. 

The things we are most certain of in this world 
are usually the ones we never get — death and taxes 
excepted. 



TEMPERANCE BARKEEPERS. 
There are barkeepers who mix and sell liquor, but 
who never drink it. If their customers would profit 
by their example, the liquor evil would become a 
thing of the past. 



THE ALL-SEEING EYE. 

God is an eye-witness to all our acts, thoughts and 
words, at all times, day or night. It is impossible 
to keep a secret from Him. 



A "CHIN" WITH A USEFUL BIRD. 

The author had a talk the other day with the tail- 
or's goose. She is the oldest living bird to-day in 
America, or in the world, for that matter, but she 
looks as young as she did a hundred years ago, when 
she used to set on George Washington's knee pants 
and hatch out the wrinkles. She says that in those 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 73 

days a dollar went much further than it does to-day. 
A dollar doesn't go so far to-day, but it stays long- 
er, and often forgets to come back. She has mis- 
laid thousands of dollars' worth of eggs, on which 
dudes, representative rich people and other geese 
have been sitting for years, and never hatched out a 
dollar for the layer of the eggs. They are the most 
promising men of our great cities and towns — always 
promising to pay, but never get to it. The old bird 
is regular in her habits, and seemingly peculiar in 
some of them — one is that she never goes to setting, 
except when she is hot over a seam or wrinkle, and 
these she sets on hard, until she hatches out smooth- 
ness, that being the principal vocation of her incuba- 
ting nature. When not on duty she cools off to one 
side, where she sets and waits to be called to arms, 
and then she gets hot again and makes war on rough 
places till they surrender smoothly. She is the most 
valuable and most imposed on bird in metallic orni- 
thology. She suits all who come along and pants for 
the money many times before she gets it. Her ex- 
planation for making four dollar pants count seven, 
is that she has to make up for the bad eggs she has mis- 
laid. She is the niece of the goose that laid the golden 
eggs, and wants to see her aunt, to put her on track of 
some of these metallic ovoids, which show signs of incu- 
batability, if set upon by some new process of collec- 
tion. 



WHITE AND BLACK SHEEP. 

Some people say that white sheep eat more than 
black ones. The reason is that tUere is more of 



174 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

them. It is not so with the black sheep of a family. 
He can get away with more stuff and cause more 
trouble than all the rest put together. 



HOW BILLS RUN UP. 

Skyrockets linger along behind accounts, when 
they start to run up. It is better to go ten degrees 
below the freezing point of our cravings than run up 
a book account. 



OH I WHAT HAPPY TIMES ! 

Money should be so plentiful that everybody would 
want anything else in preference to it, and look upon 
it as a favor if anyone would borrow it of them. 



KINGS AT A DISCOUNT. 
Only a few years ago it was a great thing to see or 
hear of a railroad king or a Wall Street king, but 
now-a-days we hear of Napoleons of finance. 



WHITEWASHING. 

Anybody who undertakes to whitewash this world 
has got a big job on hand, which they can never fin- 
ish, for the reason that it is contrary to the laws of 
nature, which must necessarily carry with it a per- 
centage of evil, or else there would be no nature. 
A certain amount of evil of one kind or another is 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 17$ 

necessary, to a limited extent, which should be 
guarded and kept within ordinary bounds, for it 
is only natural that they should exist. 



AN ELECTRIC LINGUIST. 

A fellow has brought to my notice a new inven- 
tion, or process, by which he can dissolve the rudi- 
ments of a language into an electric fluid, three 
shocks of which will make any one a linguist, speak- 
ing any foreign language like a native, Science still 
pursues us. 



CARTED AWAY. 

" Mamma, how long befo' de watah millions am ripe ?' 

" Not afo' June, my child." 
'• Den I the first one will surely swipe." 

"Go 'way, you'se talkin' wild." 

He made his word good. 
As he said he would, 

" For that nigger warn't born to live alway," 
And he asked not to stay, 
But ate a green melon, and was carted away. 



EVERYTHING THE RESULT OF SOME- 
THING. 

Everything that exists, or happens, is a result of 
something. Man's acts, words, thoughts and feelings 
are results of some one thing or another. This world 



176 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

and all herein was a result of something, to begin 
with, and results begetting results has been the re- 
sult ever since, and always will be. Man's conduct 
is the result of himself, the responsibility of which 
he often tries to shift upon the shoulders of some 
other result. It is a wise person who jean tell before- 
hand what the result of anything will be. 



LO. 

The term Lo, as applied to the Indian, has its ori- 
gin in the fact that when the white man appeared on 
the scene the Indian was laid low. 



COMMERCIAL MORALITY. 

In all new countries the standard of commercial 
morality is not as high as it might be. It is a kind of 
go-as-you-please, with chances of success and failure 
upon equal terms with one another, with the benefit 
of the doubt in favor of the latter. 



WHAT IT COSTS TO RAISE A CHILD. 

Doubtless it will be interesting to know what it 
costs to raise one of us, in comparison to other ani- 
mals and birds. The cost of raising a. child from the 
time it is born till it is twenty-one years old, includ- 
ing all cares, worries, trials, doctor's bills, fad bills, 
and other expenses, is equal to the raising and mar- 
keting of 2,983 hogs, 1,500 head of cattle, 1,000 head 
of horses, 900 head of mules, 750 sheep, 625 goats, 250 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 177 

dogs, 1,000 chickens, 800 ducks, 600 turkeys, 450 pea- 
cocks, and 9 pet bears, including two keepers. 



AS SURE AS FIRE BURNS. 
When a person does wrong he is as sure to re- 
ceive punishment for it in the form of hell here on 
earth, as he is to be burned if he sticks his hand 
in the fire. 



INTRICATE ART. 

The most intricate art consists in knowing how to 
get along with mankind peaceably and successfully. 
Only a student of nature can attempt it with any 
promise of success. Our Saviour couldn't do it, and 
lost his life in the attempt. 



HOW ABILITY IS DEVELOPED. 

Man's ability and worth is developed through ex- 
perience of hardships and sorrows. Man never knows 
what he is worth or good for until he is tried and fin- 
ished. 



OLD AND NEW. 

What seems old to one is new to another. The 
grand-parent is new to the grand-child. Ancient his- 
tory is new to those who never read it. Man is not 
necessarily very ignorant because he doesn't happen 
to know French or Latin. The biggest fool in our 
town was a man who had gone through two colleges, 



178 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

spoke seven languages and knew it all. He knew too 
much for his own good, and couldn't earn a decent 
living. 



KEEP COOL. 

Heated arguments should be avoided at all times, 
for they are a curse to humanity. Dissension, as- 
saults, bloodshed, imprisonment and execution are 
among the evil results of heated arguments. 



CRITICAL TRAITS OF NON-PRODUCERS. 
There are people who never had an original idea, 
but who yet assume to criticise the originality and 
industry of others. 



EXIT POLITICIAN. 

If political talk was limited to eloquence and truth, 
the politician would become extinct. 



PLEASED V\ HEN DOING WRONG. 
There are people who are never satisfied except 
when they are doing wrong — not even when they get 
elected to state prison or execution. Some people 
you can never please.no matter how much you do for 
them. 






CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. 

Man's words and acts are circumstantial evidence of 
how he will turn out in the end, You can't tell what 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 179 

may happen. Good men go wrong and bad ones re- 
form. Mankind is a queer mixture of everything 
that's good and bad, and the more we stir up the 
question, the less we know about it. 



WHAT THEY HEARD. 
People hear a great many things about others that 
ain't so and more about themselves than they ever 
knew. 



VALUE OF A GOOD STROKE. 

One effective stroke is worth more than a whole 
years' pottering. 



WHERE REVERSES ARE GOOD. 

If a poor man meets with reverses, loses his 
poverty, and becomes wealthy, it doesn't go very 
hard with him. 



FAIR PLAY. 

How inconsistent it is for temperance advocates to 
harp continually against strong drink, and make wild 
statements that it is carrying off thousands of people 
annually, when they fail to state the case fairly, by sup- 
pressing the fact that thousands of people are daily 
carrying off barrels of liquor. These people make 
war upon liquor and destroy it, and the liquor in 
turn makes war upon them, and they are likewise 



l8o BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

destroyed. The history of war is that both sides 
must necessarily lose some soldiers, and the battle 
with tanglefoot is no exception to the rule. 



MOVING IS HEALTHY. 

It is necessary to health and prosperity that we 
keep on the move, so as to avoid stagnation. 



LONGEVITY OF ANIMALS. 

The lower order of animals live longer in propor- 
tion, than man, for the reason that they live naturally, 
eat and drink proper food, and never take anything into 
their stomachs unnecessarily. 



THE BEST THING TO DO. 

The proper thing to do under all circumstances is 
the best thing. 



FLASH AND DISAPPEAR. 

Dashing men and women are sensations in human 
form, of short duration, and they fade away as sud- 
denly as they apppear. 



DOMESTIC FISH. 

During the Toltec Indian period, in Mexico, from 
the seventh to the twelfth centuries, these industri- 
ous people understood the art of taming and training 
certain species of fish, and employing them to chase 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. l8l 

other fish and sea monsters, like the shark and mani- 
tee, and run them down, as we train the dog to chase 
wild animals. This art alone, of which Oviedo, Gom- 
ara, and other authors make mention, is sufficient to 
refute the charge of lack of industry among those an- 
cient and honorable people. 



NEVER TALK OF KILLING TIME. 

Time was not made to be killed. Make the most 
of time you can, in the most useful and sensible man- 
ner. 



NEVER BANK ON ANTICIPATION, 

The person who borrows money or does business 
on anticipation generally comes out at the condensed 
end of the horn. 



UNCERTAINTY IS PAINFUL. 

Uncertainty is more or less painful, under any cir- 
cumstance. If people owe you money there is a 
painful uncertainty about whether you ever get it, 
and if you are hard up, in trouble, and need money, 
there is a painful uncertainty about whether anybody 
will lend you a cent. Life is an uncertainty. 



SOWING AND PLANTING. 

What more glorious occupation than that of sowing 
and harvesting ? The harvest depends upon the 
kind of seed sown, the plant set out, and the care in 



1 82 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

cultivation. So it is in our lives— if we plant good 
principles in our hearts, and cultivate them the har- 
vest will be good. But if we cultivate evil, the har- 
vest will be suffering and unhappiness. 



WE OWE OURSELVES TO WOMAN. 

No matter who or what we are in this world, we 
are indebted to woman for having started us out in 
life. The richest and smartest of us must acknow- 
ledge this truth, though lots of people, of a selfish 
spirit, act as though they started themselves and had 
nobody else to thank for it. Woman is the train dis- 
patcher of humanity. 



REQUIRES STRENGTH. 

It requires a strong person to realize his own weak 
points. He usually has to rely on others for this in- 
formation. 



NEVER APPRECIATED UNTIL AFTER 
DEATH. 

It is a sad commentary upon civilization when we 
consider the fact that the great works of most cele- 
brated artists and painters are never fully appreciat- 
ed until they have been called away. While they liv- 
ed, they toiled patiently and industriously, and the 
fruits of their labor brought only paltry sums, but 
soon after their death, their works enhanced in value, 
and in some instances a thousand-fold, and are quick- 
ly bought up by millionaires, who pay fabulous prices 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 83 

for works of art which only a short time before were 
scarcely mentioned. Hogarth's "Rake's Progress" 
sold for less than fifty dollars while he was living, 
but to-day a single painting of his would bring a for- 
tune. Raphael, sometimes called the prince of paint- 
ers, the genius of whose work attracted the attention 
of few people in a financial way until after his death, 
is a prominent case in point. No less than eight 
hundred of his designs have since been engraved, and 
many of his pictures have since been sold for the 
price of a rich man's estate. With painters, as with 
holders of life insurance policies, they have to die to 
win. 



PROPER INTENT. 

Marriage is for mutual benefit, and it should be a 
prize contest between man and wife as to who can 
outdo the other in promoting mutual welfare. 



TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE. 

When a fellow does a mean thing it is hard for hi: 
conscience to restore its faith in him. 



PROFIT BY THIS. 

The subject of this sketch was at one time posses- 
sor of a good business and was fast making money, 
wliich he squandered on the races, until finally he 
lost his business, and was out in the street without a 
dollar in his pocket, but with many judgments 



184 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

against him. His wife, who used to wear silks and dia- 
monds, and ride in an open carriage, now, poor crea- 
ture, has to make over last year's frock and ride in the 
street car when walking isn't good and she's got the 
price. 



LOOKING WISE. 

The stock of some people's wisdom consists in look- 
ing wise. Further than that they don't know much. 



INEVITABLE PENALTIES. 

Nature provides penalties for violation of her laws, 
which no human being can avoid. 



MULES AND BEAVERS. 

While some people are kicking like mules, others 
are working like beavers and keeping up with the 
procession. 






WISDOM OF THE WOODPECKER 

The woodpecker is a provident bird. He pecks 
safe deposit vaults, in the form of holes in the trunks 
of trees four stories high, in the fall of the year, and 
gathers nuts and acorns, and deposits them in the 
vault, where, during the Winter months, insects, such 
as ants, are attracted by the provender. Thus the 
woodpecker feasts daily upon those insects, while he 
is housed in his vault, protected from the cold, and 



BARBY COEY's PHILOSOPHY. 1 8$ 

all around him may be seen improvident birds suffer- 
ing from hunger and storm. Moral. — Be industrious, 
and lay up something for the Winter months and 
stormy days. 



SQUARED HIS LOSSES. 

James Johnson was a country shoemaker. One 
cold Winter's day Jim drove to town in a one-horse 
cart, and after transacting whatever business he had 
in hand, started late at night to drive home, in his 
usual condition, blind drunk. As a consequence he 
got stuck in the mud, with his horse and cart, three 
miles from town. Some of his neighbors happened 
along later, and unhitched the poor horse, which fol- 
lowed them home, leaving the shoemaker asleep in 
the cart, he having tanglefoot enough aboard to keep 
him warm the rest of the night. In the morning, 
when he woke up, he seemed dazed on finding him- 
self all alone and began looking around and repeat- 
ing to himself, ' ' Is this James Johnson — is this James 
Johnson ? If it is, he's lost a horse, and if it ain't, he's 
found a cart !" 



IT HAD EYES. 

t An old maid in our town was being courted by an 
old bachelor farmer, who, actuated by the thought to 
please her, one day sent her a present of an extra-large 
potato. She was absent when the tuber arrived, but 
the servant received it and placed it on the dressing 
case of the lady in her private apartments. Upon 
her return she became indignant at the sight of the 



1 86 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

potato, because it had eyes, and ordered the servant 
to take the thing away and roast it. The old farmer 
heard of it, and wanted to do something to appease 
her wrath, so he made a quill pen and sent it to her 
with his compliments on a card, with these words : 
' • A pinion taken from one goose to spread the opin- 
ions of another." It had the opposite effect, for she 
took it as an insult, flew into a rage and broke out all 
over in spots, so they had to send for the doctor. 
The peculiarity of old maids is that they prefer to 
flock by themselves, and if the rest of mankind were 
to believe as they do, humanity would soon be ex- 
tinct, and where now stand cities, towns and churches 
would dwell in harmony the wild fox and the weasel, 
while the bear and the panther would roam and howl, 
and make night hi.deous, and the song of the whip- 
poorwill, harmonizing with the doleful flute of the 
screech-owl, would mark a world lost to civilization. 



CLOSE. 
Because a person is close in business it doesn't 
necessarily follow that he is stingy. They have to 
be careful, in order to keep above drowning water. 



ARE THERE TOO MANY OF US? 

Taking into consideration the labor strikes and the 
thousands of unemployed, not only in the United 
States, but all over the world, showing a surplus of 
hundreds of thousands of people over and above what 
is necessary to carry on the business of the world, 
suggests the possibility of there being too many of us 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 87 

at once. In other words, the world has got more 
guests than it has accommodations for, and the result 
is that thousands are daily turned away, who, by 
force of circumstances, are compelled to live off 
others or starve. 



ACQUAI NTANCE. 

Use the word acquaintance in speaking of those 
whom you know, instead of friend, for, of all the peo- 
ple one knows, only one per cent, are friends, the 
balance acquaintances only. 



THE MOST HONEST. 

The most honest people are those who are too 
ignorant to know how to do wrong. 



TATTLE-TALE NEIGHBORHOODS. 

There are such places as tattle-tale neighborhoods, 
where everybody is trying to find out the other's 
affairs, and go away and blab about it. Such places 
are unfit for tin cans and goats to live in. 



THE FUTURE OF AFRICA. 

Africa is to-day the coming great country. Her 
natural resources, when developed, will equal that of 
the American Continent. The same conditions and 
process of civilization will have to be gone through 
with that attended the settlement of America by 



1 88 BARBY COEY*S PHILOSOPHY. 

white people — namely — war, bloodshed, crime, de- 
vastation, untold suffering and extermination of the 
black man, allee samee the red son of the forest 
of America. Native uprisings ancf African wars are 
only a parallels of our Indian uprisings and wars. 
Rivers of human blood will eventually flow in Africa, 
and thousands of poor, unfortunate, ignorant and in- 
nocent creatures will be shot down like beasts of the 
forest. Such is the evil side of the forward march of 
civilization. Our civilizers are but refined savages, 
and when the savage spirit takes hold of them they 
are, if anything, worse than their originals. 



MISCONSTRUCTION. 

Some people make a practice of misconstruing 
what is said or done, and turn virtue into evil and 
immorality. 



FEELS CHEAP. 
A person with wealth wrongfully gotten feels cheap 
every time his conscience pricks him about it. 



MEND. 
The word "mend " is one of the finest in the diction- 
ary. It means reformation, to mend one's ways, to 
mend one's clothes, to be economical and saving, to 
repair everything about the house, instead of letting 
things go to ruin and waste, which means to have to 
part with money for the purchase of new articles 
which may not be any better than the old ones, if 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 89 

mended up. Don't be envious of your thrifty neigh- 
bors because they've got more money than you, for 
the chances are they've been mending and practicing 
economy and saving. There's no word like mend, 
small though it be. 



GO SLOW. 

Don't be in too big a hurry to make a fortune. Go 
by degrees, as the calf did who swallowed the anvil. 



GOOD TIMES COMING. 

It is encouraging to hear of good times, no matter 
how hard they are. 



EVERYBODY MAY BE SUCCESSFUL. 

There is no reason why everybody should not be 
successful in whatever line they are good for. 



THEIR BRAIN KEPT IN IGNORANCE. 

Some people's eyes and mouths are in conspiracy 
against their intelligence. They see and talk about a 
thing without knowing anything about it. 



NEWSPAPERS AND CHARITY. 

What would become of the hungry, sick and suffer- 
ing people in the great cities if it was not for the news- 
payers, which create charity funds and supply money, 



190 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

food, clothing, medicine and fuel free to the unfortun- 
ate. The public press is the public's friend in need. 



HOW THE WORLD IS RUN. 

God furnishes the material and man does the work. 
The devil also does odd job work at attactively low 
figures to start in with, but high-priced in the finish. 



THE WISDOM OF "THE WISEST." 

Solomon may have been wise in some respects, but 
I fail to note his wisdom in having so many wives. 



A GOOD MEDICINE. 

One of the best health elixirs is exercise. Many 
persons imagine themselves sick, when, in reality, 
they are suffering from the effects of laziness and the 
need of fresh air. 



FROM WHOM WE CAN LEARN. 

From the most humble we can learn to have sym- 
pathy, but the only thing we can learn from people 
who put on fashionable airs is that they are fools, for 
want of sense. 



MAN NOT SMART IN ALL THINGS. 

A business man may be sharp and shrewd in some 
particular line or calling, and then make mistakes 
and errors of judgment in odd investments. The 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 191 

smartest will develop as fools some time or other, in 
some way, shape or form. No man is smart in all 
things. 



WHAT COSTLY TOMBS INDICATE. 

Costly tombs are a greater indication of the vanity 
of the living than the virtues of the dead. 



FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 

The fountain of youth is death, when life blooms 
forth anew. 



NO HUSTLE, NO GET. 

The man who says the world owes him a living 
doesn't know what he's talking about. The world 
owes nobody anything, it is free of debt, with a large 
surplus for man to hustle for. 



MAN'S TRUCK PATCH. 

The brain is where the seed of thought germinates, 
blooms and brings forth good or evil, as the case may 
be. 



OPPORTUNITIES NEED NO IMPROVE- 
MENT. 
Highly educated people sometimes get the King's 
English mixed. For instance, a noted astronomer, 
the other day, in referring to the solar eclipse, said : 
"Astronomers were never better prepared to improve 



192 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

the opportunity." The fact of the matter is that op- 
portunities give men a chance to improve themselves. 
The fellow who goes around looking for opportunities 
for repair will go broke. 



LACK OF REALIZATION. 

One reason why man does so many low-down 
things is because he doesn't realize how mean he is 
to himself. No man can wrong another without de- 
stroying his principles of manhood. 



WHAT BECOMES OF A MEAN MAN'S 
MONEY. 

The wealth of the cold-hearted and hard-fisted usu- 
ally goes to the dogs after their death, and helps run 
their descendants to the devil. 



LOCALITY AND BUSINESS. 

A man may be successful in business in one place, 
but it doesn't follow that he will be successful in an- 
other. The manners and habit, of every locality are 
usually very different, and what goes like fire in one 
place will be frozen out in another. 



PROMOTION. 

Promotion depends on what a person knows and 
can do, not on how long he has worked. Some peo. 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY 193 

pie are misled by the idea that if they remain in one 
place so long a time they will be promoted, whether 
they know anything or not. 



LOGIC AND BREAD. 

There are plenty of people ready to offer others 
logic, but few who offer bread. 



WHAT OTHERS THINK OF YOU. 

What people say of you behind your back isn't al- 
ways their real opinion of you, though it be good, 
bad or indifferent. 



THE FUTURE CRIMINAL LAW. 

The time will come when all professional criminals 
will be mercifully put to death as fast as they develop. 



SATISFACTION. 

Satisfaction is like money — some people have it in 
chunks while others get cross-eyed looking it up. 
The fellow who is looking for it in the line of fight 
generally gets accommodated to his entire satisfaction. 



ANTEDILUVIAN FADS. 

Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, 529 B. C, 
had a fadulous streak running through his make up. 
One of his fads was to have the floors of his palace 



194 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

laid with tiles, bearing the imprint of beasts, birds, 
snakes and insects. The mode of manufacture was 
unique, as follows : While the tiles were soft, they 
were spread on a level space, and the lions, tigers, etc., 
made to pass over them, leaving the imprint of their 
feet. Those over which the snakes crawled, leaving 
their tracks, were called reptiles. 



CREDIT. 

Those who deserve the most credit in this world 
get the least. 



IMPOSSIBLE TO EARN. 

It is impossible for any person in a lifetime, to 
earn a million dollars by physical labor. 



HE GETS THERE. 

Man reaches his destiny through a maze of changes 
and disappointments. 



'THUSE. 

Only four per cent, of enthusiasm pans out good for 
anything. The rest is just 'thuse — that's all. 



PARDONABLE MISTAKES. 

Pardonable mistakes are those made without any 
intention of doing wrong, as a little child may go 
astray without knowing it. We are always children 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 195 

in this world, in the sense that we are liable to make 
mistakes. No being is absolutely mistake-proof, con- 
sequently we should keep on hand at all times a stock 
of forgiving spirit for one another. 



THE POWER OF PELF. 
Money will bring a mule into notoriety and cause 
it to be idolized and worshiped. Money has develop- 
ed more fools than lack of schooling. 



Luxuries are often followed by sickness and re- 
grets. 



HAYSEED. 

When a hayseed strikes a city, the bunco steerers 
sing out, "There's a new mule in town," and proceed 
to curry the mule. 



JAWBONE STATESMANSHIP. 
Physical legislation may be denned as an attempt 
by Congressmen and Senators to wear one another 
out through of the same kind of weapon that Samson 
slew the Philistines with. And this is modern states- 
manship. 



NOTED PERSONS. 

Speaking of noted persons elsewhere, I omitted to 
mention Cleopatra, the last of the family of Ptolemy 
Lagus. She was aide-de-camp to Caesar and Mark 



196 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

Anthony, and when Mark died she got snake-bit soon 
after, and died, too, and now they say the snake is 
dead. The fellow who told me said he lost nine hun- 
dred dollars in trying to start a newspaper out in Keo- 
kuk. There were three old maids and a mother-in- 
law in town, and whenever he got a bit of news they 
would in some way get hold of it and spread it all 
over the place before he could get his paper out. 
Then he couldn't sell a copy, and the result was he 
lost everything, and had to sell his printing press for 
old junk,.to raise money enough to get back home. 
But he isn't altogether discouraged, and has begun 
life over again, in trying to introduce soft-finish tele- 
phones in deaf and dumb asylums. 



OH, WHAT A DIFFERENCE. 

When the head of a poor family is called away, his 
remains are followed to the grave by mourners heart- 
felt in their sincerity. When a rich man dies, it is 
harvest time with his heirs, who rush for his will to 
see what Santa Claus Death has brought them. 



WHAT TIME IS DOING. 
Time is bringing about a change in the condition 
of mankind for the better. The time has come in the 
march of civilization when the superfluous and im- 
practicable must give way to the practical and useful. 
Both man and woman are being judged to-day by 
their personal ability and usefulness as husbands and 
wives. The time has passed when young men and 
women fall hopelessly in love with faces only. They 



fcARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 107 

now select their partners for life on the basis of good 
character, steady habits and cammon sense. The 
husband is expected to be fully equipped to earn a 
living for his wife and family and the wife must as- 
sume the responsibilities of her position and take 
economic charge of domestic affairs. 



SIR ABSOLUTE. 

Arbitrary cusses are imbued with the spirit of the 
mule, and kick at their own shadows when there is no- 
body else around to fight with. Arbitrary people 
should never get married. 



WIDESPREAD EFFECT OF PANICS. 

Financial panics affect both employer and employee, 
inasmuch as the man in business is forced by strin- 
gency in the money market to failure, loss of business 
and capital, and the wage-earner loses his bread- 
earning place, and is out in the world, poor and hun- 
gry. The seat of these troubles should be discovered 
if possible, and destroyed. 



THE TEXT. 

Susan and Sam were two good, old-time people, of 
a pleasant and happy disposition, who went regularly 
to church every Sunday. Sam had one failing, he would 
go to sleep in church, in spite of all of Susan's coaxing 
to keep him awake. It happened one Sunday that 
Susan couldn't attend divine service, so Sam went. 



I98 BABBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

with the children, and she asked him to please keep 
awake, remember the text and pay attention to the 
sermon. Sam promised, of course, but when he and 
the children arrived at the church they hadn't more 
than got fixed in their seats when he was off for 
dreamy land, as usual. The text was : « ' There was an 
angel came down from Heaven and took a live coal 
from the altar." When they got home Susan asked 
her spouse if he remembered the text. Oh, yes ; of 
course he knew all about it, and this is what he 
quoted : « ■ There was a wild Indian came down from 
New Haven and snatched a live colt out by the halt- 
er." That settled it. After that when Susan want- 
ed the text she went after it herself. 



WHAT OUR KIDS ARE. 

Children are coupons attached to the bonds of 
matrimony. 



GETTING MAD. 
As a rule, people do themselves more harm by effer- 
vescing, boiling over, and emitting elastic gas than 
they do to anybody else. Once a month is often 
enough to get mad — then boil over about something 
that's worth the upsetting of the nerves. 



TAKE THINGS AS THEY COME. 

Impatience is the cut worm of contentment. Take 
things as they come and deal with them accordingly. 
Never discount the future by trying to leap over into 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 99 

the middle of next week. Take special care of the 
present and you are prepared for the future, which 
is sure to pass your way, and is passing now at the 
rate of twenty-four hours per day and night, without 
a single stop-over. How does your financial and con- 
duct account stand ? These two accounts embody 
all there is in the present and the future. 



LOOK OUT FOR SCHEMERS. 

Schemes with visionary fortunes awaiting investors 
have cold-decked more people out of money than 
draw poker. A dollar in your pocket is worth more 
than a million in your mind. The days of wild-cat 
skinism are over. 



DON'T PROTEST TOO MUCH. 

The trouble with explanations is that they some- 
times fail to explain. They are like a gun in the 
hands of a poor marksman. It goes off, but doesn't 
hit anything. 



TELL THE TRUTH— TO YOUR LAWYER, { 
AT LEAST. 

The way to employ a lawyer is to come right out 
and state your case truthfully. If it's for sheep-steal- 
ing, and you are guilty, why, say so, but don't try to 
pull the wool over his eyes, by denying it, for in fool- 
ing your lawyer you fool yourself into getting con- 
victed. The same thing in sending for a doctor. 



200 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

Tell Doc. the truth— just what's the matter with you. 
People who make the mistake of stating a wrong 
case, and get cured of something they never had, 
must pay the doctor's bill all the same, while all the 
time their real disease is getting the better of them. 
I heard of a case once where the doctor had been 
treating a patient six months for tuberculosis — up to 
the very hour the patient died with the jimjams. 






CONSCIENCE-FEVER. 

Should conscience-fever become epidemic, some 
wealthy people would be looking for work. The dis- 
ease would have to be in malignant form to have any 
effect on the monopolists. 



NO PLACE LIKE HOME. 

"When you have travelled the world over, and 
eaten, drank, seen and partaken of the best the old 
world affords, you will return home and say, ' ' Ameri- 
ca is good enough for me. " 



HE PLAYED POKER. 

Bob Martin, a rustic, was cold-soaked out of $400 
in a poker game the first time he came to New York. 
He had never played poker before ; in fact, had never 
heard of the game until he came to the city, when a 
new acquaintance introduced him to a little party of 
social gamesters. The mysteries of full hands and 
bob-tail flushes were explained to Bob and he took a 



BARBY COEV'S PHILOSOPHY. 26t 

hand. The cards ran lucky for him along at first, 
but after a while, when he held a full hand, another 
of the party would call him down with fours, and so 
on. Whenever Bob drew a hand to bet on, some- 
body else would hold one better, and Bob's stack of 
chips grew beautifully less, until he went broke, and 
had to borrow enough cash to pay his fare back to 
Squedunk. 



ORIGIN OF THE FOUR HUNDRED. 

When Manhattan Island was first discovered, it was 
infested with raccoons. The first settlers organized a 
Vigilance Coon Committee, and the first night's coon 
hunt resulted in the capture of four hundred ringtails. 
Hence the origin of the four hundred. Has history 
repeated itself ? It may be that the spirits of the 
coons have returned and taken refuge in elite society. 



A TALE OF TAILS. 

De coon, his tail am ringed, 

De possim's tail am bare, 
De rabbit has no tail at all, 

But a little bunch of hair. 

Dat rabbit skipp'd, dat rabbit hopp'd 
Dat rabbit bit my turnip top. 

Big-eyed rabbit hoo ! 

Let's skip, O, 'Lizer Jane ! 



CHALCHEKAMULA. 

This word is of Aztec-Spanish origin, and means the 
jaw-bone of a mule. When the estate of Montezuma 
was being settled up by Cortez, one of his deputy 



2o2 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

sheriffs was called in to levy upon the undivided half 
of an old gray mule, and not being particular about 
which end he took, it was just six weeks before he 
could open his eyes and recognize his wife. He did- 
n't know it was loaded. 



THE MODERN COLLEGIAN. 

It costs more now to keep a college student in cig- 
arettes and pocket money than it did to educate George 
Washington and all the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence. 



WITH EXCUSES TO THE HOG. 
The difference between a dude and a hog is that 
some day the hog will be cured. 



FAST, BUT HARMLESS. 

The fastest living I ever put in was eating a sev- 
enty-five cent dinner aboard a dining car going a 
mile a minute. 



DON'T FLY TOO HIGH. 

Man's aspirations should never lead him beyond the 
welfare of his fellow man, himself included. 



HOW TO PREPARE GREEN COFFEE. 

Green coffee should first be washed in three waters, 
thoroughly looked through, cleansed, and dried be- 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 203 

fore being browned or roasted, for the reason that, in 
gathering and preparing the bean by the natives, 
more or less dirt and uncleanliness attends its hand- 
ling by these strangers to godliness. The author has 
lived in coffee countries and observed the coif ee from 
tree to table. Neither does the shipping and hand- 
ling abord of vessels improve it, 



THE LION SUPERSEDED. 
Man is the king of beasts. 



A FLIMSY SUBSTITUTE. 

Fine dress is no indication of intelligence — it is 
more often used as a substitute to supply the deficien- 
cy in education. 



BALM. 

A pound of reconciliation is worth more than a ton 
of dissension. 



UPSET IN HIS WAYS. 
A boy, between the ages of ten and twenty, is like a 
grasshopper, upset in his ways, and doesn't know what 
he wants nor what to do with it if he had it. 



NEVER UNIVERSALLY GOOD. 

No new country is ever universally good for every- 
one who goes to it. One cause of failure with some 



2d4 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

people is that they never get along anywhere and are 
as well off one place as another. 



HOW TO TAKE A VACATION. 

The way to take a vacation is to go away out of 
reach of letters, telegrams, and newspapers — other- 
wise your vacation won't be a vacation, and will do 
you little good. 



THINK WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 
Man's parentage or birthplace are neither to his 
credit or discredit, for he had no say in the matter, 
one way or the other. He is only the result. 



WOULDN'T KNOW SOLOMON. 

If King Solomon were to appear on earth to-mor- 
row, he couldn't get credit for a suit of clothes, because 
nobody would know him except by hearsay. Moral. 
Be industrious and earn dollars. Everybody knows 
them personally. 



IT'S HARD, BUT IT'S TRUE. 
No matter how honest and well-meaning we may 
be, there is always someone ready to misunderstand 
and find fault. 



KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. 

Man's indifference invites ignorance. His indiffer- 
ence as to what is going on about him leaves him a 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 205 

serf, a slave and a heathen. Man should never be in- 
different to what is passing ; he should keep along in 
the procession of Father Time, who reveals all things 
for our instruction, experience and benefit. 



A BAD INDICATION. 

The use of vulgar language is an indication of low 
breeding and worse bringing up. 



THE LIGHT OF SOCIETY. 

Society people consider themselves so bright that 
they don't need any light in the parlor to do their 
courting by. 



SOURCE OF MUCH BAD FEELING. 

Many people get up in the morning, feeling bad 
from the effects of too much bug-juice the night be- 
fore. 



THE GOLD CURE. 

The best way to take the gold cure is in the shape 
of dollars in thy pocket. 



A BEELZECOOTHY. 

This term is of ancient Hellenic origin, and means 
one who thinks that, because he is in a bar-room, he 
is privileged to use vulgar language and act with im- 
pure cussedness. God gave man no right to act 



206 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

other than a man at all times, under all circumstances ; 
no man has any more right to act the brute than he 
has to rob or murder. We are in this world to be 
good to ourselves and to one another. 



Few people, when abroad, act homelike. 



A LOBO WOLF. 

A person who makes a practice of talking bad 
about others is a lobo wolf in sheep's skin. He is 
false to himself, wrong to others, and true only to his 
lord and master, the devil. 



BURIAL AT SEA. 
There is a degree of solemnity connected with a 
burial at sea which has no corresponding feature in a 
funeral ceremony on shore. The element upon which 
one floats, the narrow limits of the ship, from which 
there is no escape, brings the shadow into our very 
presence, nor can we even turn from it. 



Those in power are not always the most competent. 



NEVER KNOW TILL WE TRY. 

We never know what we can stand until we have 

gone through the ordeal. Men who have been so 

timid they could scarce muster courage enough to 

have an aching tooth pulled, have gone to war vol- 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 207 

untarily and faced shot and shell, left a leg or an arm 
on the battle-field and stood the terrible ordeal with 
fortitude and without a flinch. 



TAKE A GOOD ONE, OR YOU'LL HAVE 
TROUBLE. 

Our character is the only thing we take with us 
when we leave this world. It is our passport. 



DON'T REMOVE THE BUNG. 

There isn't a headache in a barrel of whiskey, as 
long as it stays in the barrel. 



NECESSARY DETAILS. 

The details of life keep us employed during our 
short stay on earth ; without our little troubles we 
would be lost, even at home. 



PROSPERITY AND GIDDINESS. 

Only the grasshopper-minded permit good news 
and prosperity to make them giddy and act silly. 



THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, 1893. 

The great World's Fair of 1893, at Chicago, is here- 
with recorded in history as the grandest exhibition of 
art, industry, learning and practical Christian pro- 
gress ever massed under the canopy of heaven, and 



2o3 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

especially praiseworthy for so young a nation as Am- 
erica, at the Closing of the Nineteenth Century. 
Chicago covered herself and our country with honor 
and glory, which will last for all time to come. May 
peace and progress abide.always with us is the heart- 
felt prayer of the author. 



LOVE AND FEAR. 

Christianity teaches us to love God, while religion 
teaches us to fear him. A child that obeys its father 
and mother through love and respect is imbued with 
a true Christian spirit, but a child that obeys its par- 
ents through fear is not to be trusted. 



CHEAP JOHNS. 

Some people are like a cheap John suit of clothes- 
they don't wear well. 



SORRY FOR IT. 

Four out of every five people, if permitted to have 
their way in everything, would be sorry for it after- 
ward. 



DRIVE THE DEMON OUT. 

The evil spirit of infelicity has taken hold upon the 
theatrical profession, and threatens that indispensa- 
ble garden of diversion, pleasure, merriment and 
good cheer with odium. The divorce demon, which 
shatters love, affection and morality, should be weeded 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 209 

out of the garden. It is a strange fact that many- 
people have the faculty of making money, pleasure 
and happiness for others, but none for themselves 
There is no valid reason why this state of affairs 
should exist, and as it doesn't exist with the majority 
of the members of the theatrical profession, there is 
no moral reason why it should exist at all. Drive the 
demon out. 



CIRCUMSTANCES TO BLAME. 

Much of man's wrong-doing is caused by evil cir- 
cumstances. Cause is responsible for effect. Prose- 
cute the cause, and have mercy for mankind under 
the circumstances. 



HAWKS' CLAWS. 

A plague once visited the Chechemeca Indian 
country, in the form of hawks of an enormous size, 
which came in such numbers that it threatened death 
and destruction to all domestic fowl, young pigs, 
goats and lambs. The government offered a reward 
of twenty-five cents a '•pair for hawks' claws. The 
author reached the plague-stricken district in time to 
take a hand in the fracas, and found the Indians wild 
with excitement over the prospect of making money 
out of hawks' claws. Some were armed with bows 
and arrows, and others with flint lock muskets, till the 
country for miles around presented a grand spectacle 
of war up to the handle against hawks. The author 
took in the situation at a glance, and after fifteen 
minutes' suffering with suggestion of the brain over 



2IO BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

his mental phone, hit upon a plan for making the en- 
emy surrender their claws without firing a shot. The 
following plan was adopted : All the scythe blades in 
the country were secured, ground to the sharpness of 
a razor, and fastened on poles, with the edge of the 
scythe up. Then these poles were set in the ground, 
in different sections, round about where the hawks 
frequented. A chicken, tied by the leg, adorned the 
foot of each pole, and when all was ready everybody 
retired. The hawks would sail round and round over 
the chicken, and finally light on the scythe-blade with 
such force that off would come their claws, and in 
many cases the foul birds would split in two. The 
author picked up fourteen dead hawks and three 
eagles under one scythe-blade, besides ridding the 
plague-stricken country of its incubus, and pocketing 
over four hundred dollars. 



EVER LINGERING NEAR. 

While war may not be in sight of mankind, man- 
kind is at all times in sight of war. 



THAWING DYNAMITE. 

Conclusions are as dangerous as thawing out dyna- 
mite on a red-hot stove. We should go slow and be 
very deliberate in arriving at conclusions, for the rea- 
son that only one conclusion in twenty-seven is good 
for anything, the other twenty-six being only fit for 
demonstrations of failure. In the case of the fellow 
who thawed out the dynamite, he didn't live long 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 211 

enough to enjoy the benefits of his experience. The 
conclusion he came to was a dangerous one, so his 
friends say ; therefore we should take the lesson to 
ourselves and beware of what we intend to do, and 
think it over carefully before we do it. 



USEFUL MISSIONARIES. 

Foreign missionaries should engage in farming and 
other industries, so as to educate the heathen in prac- 
tical Christianity, as well as creedism. 



THE DEATH SCREW. 

The corkscrew opens the way for poor, weak man 
to swallow poison, while the dreaded screwdriver is 
waiting- to fasten the lid on his coffin. 



WHEN THE HAIR IS TURNING WHITE. 

The best thing to do when the hair is turning white 
is to let it turn. Gray hair is natural, and not the 
least bit dishonorable, unless dishonored by its owner. 



EGYPT AND MEXICO. 

Why is it not as reasonable to suppose that the 
Egyptians came from Mexico as it is theorized that 
the original Mexicans came from Egypt? It my 
humble opinion neither came from either place. 



212 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

They are part and parcel of a once great nation, 
which became separated in a collision between our 
earth and Mars, referred to in another chapter. 



CIVILIZATION NO GRAFT FOR THE 
HEATHEN. 

It is mighty poor wisdom to educate the heathen up 
to civilization's wants, without giving him the oppor- 
tunity of acquiring it as easily as he does his happy-go- 
lucky native life, free from want and care. 



CANNIBAL ETIQUETTE. 
The cannibals of the South Sea Islands never pick 
their teeth in company, or in public. The habit is 
considered vulgar even among the Hottentots and 
Digger Indians. 



MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 

Don't think everyone you see with a Prayer Book 
or Testament is a Christian. Even the possession of 
firearms isn't always an indication of bravery. 



DRESS REFORM. 

If dress reform keeps on in its low cut strides, we 
will soon be back to first principles, ere Adam 
and Eve set up a millinery shop. The trouble with 
some ladies' dresses is that they are too short at one 
end and too long at the other. Wouldn't it be better 
to cut off the long end that sweeps the street and 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 213 

splice it to the other ? What is more surgical and 
agricultural-like than to see a lady dressed a la low- 
necked, with amputated sleeves and a carpet sweeper 
and a hay rake attachment* dragging behind ? The 
term "full dress " doesn't begin to deseribe it, for the 
reason that the dress is more than full and overflow- 
ing at one end, with lots to spare at the other. 



SATAN ASSISTS. 

Thousands of people are annually employed in 
making burglar alarms and locks. If it wasn't for 
Satan, these people would be thrown out of employ- 
ment. The Devil is a necessary evil to mankind, to a 
limited extent. 



CHERISH THIS IDEA. 

Never lose sight of the value of money ; don't waste 
a cent on anything. Every dollar you lose is a friend 
in need lost. 



RESURRECTION DAY. 

Every day is resurrection day with those who die, 
for through death life is resurrected from its earthly 
body and ascends to its new body in Heaven to live 
on forever. 



"LADY" AND "GENTLEMAN. 

These terms go astray many a time, for we often 
see men and women who are nekher ladies nor gen- 



214 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

tlemen, though they may be dressed in fine clothing 
and have money in wads. The terms "lady "and 
"gentleman" apply only to people of refinement 
and morality. 



THE TOLTEC CODE. 

The following definitions of expressions from the 
code of laws in vogue among the Toltec Indians of 
the eighth century, as deciphered by the author from 
the original stones, will be read with interest, especi- 
ally in view of the revelations lately made before a 
Senatorial Committee in New York City : 

Popamityanlotl. One who bribes others to do 
wrong. Punished by death by drowning; the body 
buried with face downward. 

Panlotlipotl. One who accepted a bribe to do 
wrong. Punished by cutting off the lobe of each ear 
for the first offence ; head off for the second offence*. 

Tecuamiltolotl. A highway robber. Punished by 
being tied hand and foot, and buried alive. 

Cuitlamotlihuitl. A dishonest servant. Punished 
by being branded on the cheek as a mark of warning 
to others not to employ him or her. 

Izalhuatl. A man who alienates the affections of 
another man's wife, causing her to leave her husband's 
home. Punished by being stoned to death. 

Cuitlihuoclilotl. A trusted employee who robbed 
his employer. This offence was considered greater 



EARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 21 5 

than burglary, because the thief was robbing his 
friend, who gave him employment, and was punished 
by death by drowning in bitter water. 

Quilpinzantepec : A criminal by profession. Pun- 
ished by being tied to a stake, there to remain with- 
out food or water until death came through starva- 
tion. 

Tlaxhuitlotzin. A woman who alienates the affec- 
tions of another woman's husband, causing him to de- 
sert hia wife. Punished by death by poisoning. 

Zochizmiltzin. A dishonest government official. 
Punished by death by strangulation. 

Hauxinpantepec. A wife-beater. Punished by be- 
ing drowned. The government or relatives took care 
of the widow and children until the wife chose to 
marry again. [ Pity that law isn't in force to-day, J 

Itzintotlihuitl. A swindler by games of chance. 
Punished by being bled to death. 

Catulpectipetl. A designing woman, who lured men 
into a semblance of wrong, for black-mailing purposes. 
Punnished by imprisonment for life, and never per- 
mitted to see the face of the sun. 

Yucantezpetl. One who would impose upon a stran- 
ger in a strange land. Punished by death by stran- 
gulation. 

Caiulatliiotl. A woman who went about gossiping 
and making mischief — a disturbing element in the 
community. Punished by being compelled to wash 



2l6 BARBY COEY'S- PHILOSOPHY. 

the feet and clothes of those she talked about, and 
sweep their yards once a week for four months. 

Cualcaxotli. A dishonest trustee. Punished b} 
death by drowning. 

Huityinzotl. A female thief. Punished by cutting 

off the end of the nose as a mark of warning to the 
public. 

Huoczenposticatl. A murderer. Punished by being 
stabbed to death. 

Patolquachelotl. A man with more than one wife, 
living a double life. Punished by slitting the lobe of 
the ear, as a mark of warning to the public that such 
men were' not to be trusted. 

Patolquachipectepetl. A woman with more than one 
husband. Punished by being compelled to wear the 
hair cut short. [ This was considered to be an awful 
disgrace among the Indians, who fairly worship their 
long and heavy suits of hair.] 

The Toltecs obeyed the laws of their country, as 
good citizens should, and crime among them was 
exceedingly rare. They were a harmless, peaceable 
and industrious race. 



SPAIN'S APOLOGY FOR MEXICO. 

At a banquet given some time ago a young Span- 
iard was called upon for a speech, which he delivered 
as follows : ' ' Ladies and Gentlemen — Had America 
conquered Mexico she would have repeopled it 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 2l7 

with practical Christianity and spread it all over with 
schools, saw-mills, tan yards, first-class hotels, baker- 
ies, shoemakers' shops, railroads, palace cars, steam- 
boats and savings banks, and moved all the cities and 
towns out of the swamps and set them up on hills, 
where they could have drainage and fresh air, and 
thereby reduce the death rate fifty per cent. But 
Spain being the conqueror, gave freely of what she 
had, and that was — plenty of religion ! ' ' 



HIS BEST FRIEND. 

Man with money has many acquaintances, but few 
real friends. His money is his best friend. 



LIFE'S QUERIES. 
Take love, music and diversion away, and lite 
wouldn't be worth living. Take sickness, disease and 
trouble away, and we would fail to appreciate health 
and happiness. 



BASIS OF BELIEF. 

The faith and belief of people is usually based up- 
on what they^have been taught, but the trouble is 
that many have been taught wrong. 



A. FOOL IN TOWN. 
A man who has struck it rich in a mine, or other- 
wise, and goes to the city, splurging with his money 
and living high, meets many well-dressed friends of 



2l8 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

many climes who flatter him into temporary aberra- 
tion of mind, and lead him into scheme-traps to 
catch his pile — from poker, race horses, stock and 
grain gambling, dead-sure-winner enterprises, second 
mortgages, etc. — until finally he wakes up, swamped 
in lawsuits, debts and attachments, and realizes 
there's a fool in town. 



MISERIES OF OFFICE. 

The social functions that belong to office are health 
destroying, expensive, wearing and tearing upon the 
office-holder. 



HOW WE SHOULD LIVE. 

We should so live and conduct ourselves as to 
merit the respect and attention of good people, whose 
influence is worth something to us. 



THE AUTHOR'S START. 

I started out in life with a small stock of schooling, 
acquired in a three months' term at a pine log-cabin 
school-house, with the bark on, and worm-eaten in 
places, with a roof of poles, leaving cracks for astro- 
nomical purposes, and hard seats without backs. My 
studies were confined to Webster's Spelling Book, 
writing and arithmetic, and if a fellow got along as 
far as the double rule of three by the end of the term 
he was looked upon as having made a fair record. I 
studied my lessons at night, by the light of pine knots 
which I gathered in the woods on my way home 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 2ig 

from school. One day Robinson's Circus came along, 
with live tigers, elephants, zebras, etc., the pictures of 
which I had so much admired in my childhood's 
primer days, when I was learning my A, B, C's, and 
that settled it. I made up my mind from that time 
on to work hard, and earn money, travel, and see the 
countries where these animals came from, and now, 
after thirty-odd years of travel and varied experience, 
in which I engaged in about everything but a Congres- 
sional run, I have written a book which I hope you 
will enjoy, and be slow in recovering from the effects 
of the enjoyment. 



ROOMING WITH A BOA CONSTRICTOR. 

While traveling through the forests of the Upper 
Amazon River, South America, I met with a peculiar 
adventure. One night, after a hard day's ride on a ra- 
zor-backed horse, I came to a trapper's cabin, where I 
halted for lodging, and was assigned a narrow shed 
off to one side of the main hut, where I slept on bam- 
boo poles, which are as hollow as gas piping, and in 
each one there dwelt some living thing. In some 
were lizards, in others flying ants, beetles and a few 
more things, but these I didn't mind. In the morning 
when I woke up, the first thing I saw was a huge 
boa snake, fourteen feet long, stretched out on a 
girder across the room, not over four feet above the 
foot of my bed. Upon making inquiries regarding 
the character and reputation of my room-mate, I was 
informed that Mr. Boa was a member of the family, 
having been adopted as such when a baby snake, 
twelve years before, and utilized by the landlord to 



220 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

keep the house rid of rats and mice. I deem it in or- 
der at this juncture of my story to state that I hadn't 
tasted a drop of tangle- foot for two weeks previous. 



WORSE THAN A STROKE OF PAR- 
ALYSIS. 
A mad fit often causes its victim to writhe in fury 
and to say and do mean things to others, destructive 
of friendship. A mad fit is worse than a fatal stroke 
of paralysis, for in the latter case the victim will get 
over it by dying, without inflicting suffering on 
others. 



INDIAN WISH ROOT. 

This is a species of herb known among the Indian 
tribes of Central America, the peculiarity of which 
is that you make a tea of it, make a wish when you 
drink it, and whatever that wish is it will come to 
pass before the second Tuesday of the following 
week. A white man who happened to be visiting 
the tribe one day heard of this wonderful herb ; he 
got hold of some, made himself a cup of tea, drank 
it, making the wish that the Indians would not molest 
him while in their country. That afternoon he went 
out to hunt wild boars, and was found later by some 
friendly natives, sitting under a tree, crying like a 
child, with not a stitch of clothing on him. The Jun- 
gle Indians had caught and robbed him of everything 
he had but his life. The friendly natives gave him 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 221 

a blanket to walk home in, where, upon his arrival, 
he discovered his mistake. He had made tea of the 
top of the herb, instead of the root, which had the op- 
posite effect, so he immediately drank tea made from 
the root, and that night a Jew clothing pedler came 
along, and the white man, wanting revenge, took it 
out of the poor Jew, to whom he gave a cup of tea off 
the wrong end of the herb, and next morning all that 
was left of the Jew pedler was the Jewish part. 
The white man was dressed up like a major. If you 
hear of some poor fellow playing to hard luck tell him 
to take a dose of Indian wish root, but look out he 
doesn't get hold of the wrong end. 



ADVERTISING FOR A WIFE. 

Fools are born at every minute, 
Never knowing they are in it; 
Through their whole life long 
Never know for what they're born. 

He who advertises for a wife, 
Makes misery his lot through life. 
She who thus selects her mate, 
Turns loving nature into hate. 

A penalty surely follows all things unnatural. To 
advertise for a wife as you would for an article of mer- 
chandise is unnatural and heathenish, to say the least. 
The true Christian and natural way to obtain a wife 
is to court her and tell her truthfully just what you 
think of her, and win her love and affection by just, 



222 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

honorable and fair means. Don't tell her that you 
have this, that or the other, or give her any fairy 
tales of fortune in store for her, for if she loves, she 
will believe you and forsake her parents and friends 
to become yours, only to find out afterwards all was 
not gold that glittered. Then her love will turn to 
sorrow or to hate. She is disappointed in you, 
sorry she ever met you, and all happiness is gone, for 
humiliation and disappointment have driven it away. 
Be honorable in courtship, and win your bride fairly, 
and keep the flame of love always shining bright by 
adding love's kindling-wood to your fire of affection 
for the one chosen. 



BETTER THAN DOING NOTHING. 
Never be dependent on any one, especially your 
relatives. Better saw wood for your board and lodg- 
ing than do nothing, living at somebody else's ex- 
pense and going in debt besides. 



HAVE SOME PRIDE ABOUT YOU. 

Never intrude where your're not welcome, or notice 
those who show signs of non-intercourse and with- 
drawal of friendly relations. It is mighty poor sugar 
that can't furnish its own sweetening. 



NEVER STOOP TO LITTLE THINGS. 

People with pride and dignity should never stoop to 
little things. I found that out when a child wearing 
short dresses. I stooped down one day and picked 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 223 

up a live bumble bee. That convinced me, and from 
that day to this I have never stooped to little things. 



DISHONEST FAILURE. 

Any man who can't pay his bills, on account of hav- 
ing gambled his money away, deserves no sympathy ; 
it is dishonest failure. 



FREE LOVE. 

Free love can only be trusted to the lower order of 
animals with safety. 



WHY A FOOL IS A FOOL. 

The seat of trouble with the unwise lies in the fact 
that they won't reason why and where they are 
wrong. 



IMAGINARY ARISTOCRACY. 

Foolish pride makes man an imaginary aristocrat 
to-day and a pauper-debtor to-morrow. 



HOW SHALL WE GET ALONG WITH- 
OUT THEM? 

One by one our great men and women are being 
called by the stern tyrant, Death, and the question 
arises, how shall we get along without them ? The 
answer is, that their life work is a legacy to others 
held in reserve to take the place of those called 



224 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

away to a higher sphere in life. Hence the machin- 
ery of life and humanity is never allowed to stop, but 
is kept constantly going, through the wisdom of its 
Creator. Besides, the places made vacant by death 
are opportunities for the living to become great and 
to improve upon the work of their predecessors. 
There are just as good men and women in the world 
to-day as ever left it, and opportunity develops them 
as time goes on. 



A FEW REMARKS ON MOURNING. 

Mourning is a sign of death, but not always an indi- 
cation of grief. It is a fashionable fad with some peo- 
ple, according to their feelings and the latest style of 
dress, and many internally wear a feeling of joy, 
clothed in make-believe sorrow. Reverence is not in 
it. 



INVISIBLE GRAVE-STONES. 

Memory only serves to mark a watery grave. 



THE LAST THING TO GIVE WAY. 

The last thing to give way in a human being is the 
heart. It gives life back to its Creator to dispose of 
it as he sees fit. 



NEVER BE TOO QUICK TO TAKE OF- 
FENCE. 
People often make the mistake of assuming offence 
to be given where none is intended. Such people 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 225 

are imbued with the spirit of a hyena; they snap and 
growl at their own shadows, and are unfit company 
for themselves or anybody else. No man was ever a 
friend to another who cut that friendship for an im- 
aginary cause. Avoid giving offence, keep out of bar- 
room brawls and disputes, for they always result in 
wrong. 



NEVER DROWN A WOE. 

No woe was ever worth the drowning, either by 
liquor or water. Strive to outlive and endure the hard- 
ships, and if you die a natural death in the struggle, 
you will inherit a palace above. 



AFRAID. 

Never be afraid of anyone, for the moment a brute 
sees you wilt her feels that he has you in his power. 
Avoid trouble and keep away from quarrelsome peo- 
ple. 



CAUSING UNNECESSARY TROUBLE. 

A disobedient and wayward young man causes a 
great amount of unnecessary trouble and expense, 
considering his age and ability. 



TO THOSE BORN WEALTHY. 

How little those young men and women born of 
wealthy parents know of the hardships, toils, self- 
denial and sufferings their less fortunate sisters and 



226 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

brothers endure, who have to struggle from morning 
till night for a living ! 



AMATEURS. 

We are all amateurs in this world, preparing our- 
selves for our debut in the next. 



NOT FAR NOW. 

The Far West has become a thing of the past, 
Since practical Christianity's got there at last ; 
But Satan's at work, retarding Christ's wisdom, 
Under the cover of religious creedism. 



SMATTERMAN. 

The smatterman is he who has a smattering know- 
ledge of a few things, but who thinks he knows it all. 



SWATH-CUTTERS. 
High-rollers and swath-cutters usually fall victims 
to their own scythes and their own follies. 



NOT MUCH LEFT. 
Once Satan has got a person's mouth to work for 
him, there isn't much left for Christianity. 

WHO ARE GOOD LISTENERS. 

It is characteristic of all successful men that they 
are good listeners, good students of mankind, an4 



EARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 227 

weigh thoughtfully everything said to them. They 
never attempt anything without first taking into con- 
sideration the whys, proofs, probabilities, and mo- 
tives, and they anticipate the result, as far as their 
power of knowledge can weigh and measure it out. 



WHERE HUMILIATION CAN BE 
AVOIDED. 

Man's humiliation can be avoided to a great extent 
by curtailing demands for favors and keeping pos- 
session of the mighty dollar ; then he need ask no 
favors. 



THE WEALTHY CHARITABLE. 

There isn't another nation on the earth with a 
greater number of wealthy charitable people than 
America can boast. And they are discreetly charita- 
ble, many of them having given thousands of dollars 
without letting it be advertised to the general pub- 
lic. 



Hoodlums are the sprouting evils of crime and 
criminals. 



NOT A DREAM. 
Life is not a dream — it is a reality — but the trouble 
with some people is that they don't realize it. 



BAD JUDGMENT. 

Pre-judgment means to judge before hearing, see- 
ing, or knowing. Prejudice is the outcome of pre- 



228 BARBY COEY*S PHILOSOPHY. 

judgment. No fair-minded person will ever pre- 
judge a thing or a person before he knows the truth 
or hears both sides. Tale-bearers are scavengers in 
the employ of Satan, their occupation being to smirch 
the character of the innocent. They are not to be 
believed on oath. 



WORTHLESS KNOWLEDGE. 
Two-thirds of what man knows is of no real use to 
him. 



UPSET. 

Every calculation should be entered into with a 
full appreciation of the possibilities of being upset. 



TIME! TIME! TIME! 

Our every breath, thought, word or act requires 
time ; we were born in time and die in it. The world 
was created in time, moves in time, and in a short time 
we'll move out, but the world will still keep moving 
on time. 



MONKEYS, HORNED TOADS AND WOOD- 
PECKERS. 
When the telegraph line was first constructed along 
the coast of Southern Mexico it was almost impossi- 
ble to keep it in repair on account of the wild mon- 
keys using the wires as swings, with consequent 
breakage, while the woodpeckers would light on the 
insulators, and, hearing the buzzing noise caused by 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 229 

the vibration of the wires, think it was insects or 
worms inside the pole, and then immediately set to 
work pecking a hole in the pole, to get at their prey. 
While the woodpeckers were hard at work, the horn- 
ed toads would carry up red ants to feed them until 
the job was finished, and for this the toads were to 
have one-third of everything the woodpeckers found 
in the poles. One day a dispatch buzzed over the 
wire, saying that a Wall street syndicate had got con- 
trol of the line, and the news had such a shocking 
effect that it electrocuted all the monkeys, knocked 
the woodpeckers sky-high and scared the horned 
toads so they never stopped running till they got to 
Central America ; ever since then the line has been 
working all right, and there's no more monkeying 
with the wires. 



IDLENESS AND LABOR. 

Idleness is unprofitable inactivity. All honest labor, 
however humble, is dignified. 



WHAT IS GRIP? 

It is the concentrated extract of every ailment 
known to man or beast, any one of which he is liable 
to die with. 



HOW OLD TERRA WILL WIND UP. 

The world will come to an end through the gradual 
slowing down of the wheels of population. This slow- 



230 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

down will be imperceptible at first, until the wheels 
begin to roll the other way ; then fewer and fewer 
children will be born as the centuries pass, until finally 
all will be extinct, and old terra firma will be to let. 
That story about the world being destined to be 
burnt up is a mistake, in my opinion. They tried that 
in Chicago once, and now they've got a bigger and 
better Chicago than they had before. 



SPORT. 

It is essential to our happy and healthful existence 
that we should indulge in rational sports, such as 
gymnastics, foot-ball, base-ball, horseback riding, foot 
racing, picnicing, boating, fishing, singing, playing and 
dancing. Enjoy everything you can that is worth en- 
joyment in this world, but take special care to do so 
in moderation. Remember that good can be turned 
into evil by excess and intemperance. The two worst 
evils of good society and pleasure are betting and li- 
quor-drinking. Abolish these two greatest and worst 
enemies of mankind, and life will be a paradise. All 
will live longer, be happier and have better health. 



WARS. 
Moralists deplore the slaughter of battle, but mili- 
tary men never, because the survivors (and all hope 
to survive) consider the killed and wounded as so 
many removed out of the way of their promotion 
It is a lottery, in which the blanks are death, but 
every soldier looks only to the prizes. Glory in war- 
fare is derived solely from the justice of the war. 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 231 

Those who are victorious in an unjust war have no 
higher glory than appertains to the success of a ban- 
ditti. But this discrimination is not always made, 
either by contemporaries or historians, and kings and 
courts confer meiitorious distinction on their suc- 
cessful generals, to excite them, and to gloss over the 
injustice of the cause. 



APPRECIATION. 

Appreciation is a great faculty to possess. It en- 
ables one to value life as it comes and put a just esti- 
mate upon men and things. Some people have been 
born without a vein of appreciation in their make-up, 
and who cannot value anybody or thing but them- 
selves. 



A GOOD LENDER, A POOR BORROWER. 

A liberal-hearted fellow, who is ever ready to help 
others, is a poor hand at borrowing when he is in 
trouble and needs assistance. Moral. — It does'nt pay 
to be indiscriminately liberal. 



DISCRETION AND VALOR. 

It is good discretion and ninety per cent, of valor, 
as a rule, to respect those in authority. 



PROBLEMS AND FOOD. 

It is often the case that there is more money in 
raising potatoes than in solving problems. Millions 



232 BAltBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

of people are changed for the better by the solution 
of a problem, and yet it often happens that he who 
labors long and hard to solve the problem has scarce 
money enough to live on. 



THE PORTER AND HIS MASTER. 

It is often the case that the porter is better off than 
the man whose trunk he carries. 



NO FAITH IN THEMSELVES. 
People who feel it their duty to call upon God to 
bless everything they say and do can't have much 
confidence in themselves. 



PASSING OF THE STONE AGE. 

Monumental schools and hospitals should take the 
place of costly stone monuments, relics of the dark 
ages, and of no material benefit either to the departed 
or the living. 



DEAR MONEY, 
Money is never cheap to the man or woman who 
works and earns it. On the contrary, it is high-priced 
to those who are fortunate enough to own any. 



CHESTNUT-BURR RIDERS. 

How strange it looks to a ranchero to see the chap- 
pie style of horseback riding in the cities. These 
thumpety-bump-johnny-jump-up-and-down riders act 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 2$$ 

as though their saddles were padded with chestnut- 
burrs, pricking them at every ridiculous jump. Why 
don't they go out West, with the cow-boys and Indians, 
and learn how to ride gracefully and in harmony with 
the movement of the horse. 



HOW OUR MINDS SHOULD CHANGE. 

We should so conduct ourselves in life that should 
we change our minds regarding one another it would 
be to think better of those whom we began to think 
well of at first. 



LOOKING BACKWARD. 

At the age of twenty years we have a slight glimpse 
of ourselves at ten, as others saw us at that trouble- 
some period, and at forty we see ourselves at twenty, 
as others saw us. 



REGARD OTHERS' OPINIONS. 

No matter what our opinion may be on any subject 
it is our duty to respect the differing opinions of 
others. All are entitled to their own honest way of 
thinking. 



SHUT THE DOOR SOFTLY. 

• 

There is an art in opening and closing a door which 
many seem to know little about. The proper way is 
to take hold of the knob, then turn it gently as far as 
it will go, then push the door open gracefully, and 



234 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

close it behind you, softly. Some people open a door 
and close it as though they had been brought up in a 
barn, along with mules and goats. They grab and 
shove the knob at the same time, wearing and tearing 
the catch, and slam the door to with a bang that can 
be heard all over the house ; while others leave the 
door open, to give the dust and draught a chance to 
make some-one catch a cold, which often develops in- 
to pneumonia and a funeral. 



HARD WAY TO EARN A LIVING. 

A salesman, or a man in business for himself, who 
has to go around, drinking liquor with his customers, 
in order to get their trade, has a tough time of it, no 
matter how much he earns. A cobbler has an easier 
job. 



WHAT LEADS CIVILIZATION. 

The advance of civilization is led by Christian prin- 
ciples in active operation. The telephone, the tele- 
graph, the palace car and the steamer, and all other 
modern improvement, are the result of practical 
Christianity. 



GO SLOWLY ON STARTING. 

Many people make the fatal mistake of too much 
display and expense on the start. They begin busi- 
ness by rushing headlong into expensive offices and 
general extravagance, without first going ahead in 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 235 

a modest way and finding out whether the business 
promises to be a success. Never judge a business, a 
firm, or a company by the offices they occupy, any 
more than you would a man by the clothing he 
wears. 



SOAP. 

There is more godliness in a Babbitt cake than in 
the minds of people who never take a bath. 



DUPE YET NO DUPE. 

Everybody isn't a fool who is taken for one. The 
taker sometimes gets warmed into the fact that he is 
the fool. 



FOOLISHNESS. 

What's the use of our legislators wasting time and 
money trying to pass a bill which they know before- 
hand will be vetoed, unless they are ;:ure they can 
pass it over the 'to's head. 



GIGANTIC LIARS. 

Monumental lying is the joker in the woodpile of 
progress and civilization. Discard it, and trade, com- 
merce and politics would suffer. 



CREDULITY CRIME'S VICTIM. 

Credulity is a kind of brain-fever that affects many 
people, who believe, without sense or reason, every- 



23<> BARBY COEY's PHILOSOPHY. 

thing they hear, see, taste or smell. They are known 
as credulites, and are easy victims to all manner of 
sharpers and schemers, who make it a busines to rob 
people of their money. 



SHOULD GO TOGETHER. 

Labor and capital should be bosom friends ; there's 
no reason in the world why they shouldn't pull to- 
gether and use every effort to mutually advance each 
other's interest and the general welfare. 



CHURCH MILITANT. 

A canon of the Church is a piece of religious artil- 
lery, mounted to fight Satan. My sympathy is with 
the canon, and I hope it will be victorious in every 
battle, whether it be manned by Protestant, Catholic, 
Hebrew or Hindoo. It's aim is to do good. 



DIVINE MUSIC. 

John Howard Payne, the author of "Home, Sweet 
Home," wrote himself into heaven on that song. If 
it isn't on the programme aloft, it ought to be. 



THRIFT. 

It isn't what one makes that tells, it's what one 
saves. Some people in receipt of three dollars or less 
a day will have more money at the end of a year than 
others who get ten dollars a day. It all depends up- 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 237 

on the person, his habits and his ideas of the value of 
money. 



YOU SHOULDN'T RISK YOUR FAIR 
FAME. 

No man can afford to gamble with his reputation 
with a spendthrift's recklessness. 



HAPPY ROAMER OF THE FOREST. 

The mental strain of business and financial worry 
is a fiend amuck through man's brain, which the 
strongest and bravest often surrender to. Blessed 
was the red man before the advent of civilization, for 
he knew not the trials, troubles and tribulations of 
our boasted better life. 



NEVER SURRENDER TO ADVERSITY. 

Every human being has his ups and downs in this 
world, therefore no one who is in hard lines should 
give up and think that he is the only sufferer. Never 
surrender to adversity, be manly, self-reliant and 
proudly rise above it, whether you've got a dollar or 
not. 



NO REST IN THE GRAVE. 

When a person dies, and the body is consigned to 
the grave, it is referred to as being laid at rest, which, 
in point of fact, is a mistake, for the reason that man's 



238 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

body does not rest, even in the grave, for there it be- 
gins its labor of disintegrating and working its pas- 
sage back to mother earth, from whence it came. 



A TIN KETTLE. 

Man's imagination makes him a tin kettle tied to a 
bull's tail, running wild, loose and reckless, and when 
asked where he's going his answer is, ■ * Don't know — 
ask the bull." 



THE WHISKEY TRUST. 

If this Trust was anything like what it appears on 
paper it would be a blessing to mankind. But it is 
not a whiskey trust, in a sense, for the reason that 
many people will not trust the whiskey out of sight, 
except when they are on the outside of it. 



HOUSE UPSETTERS. 

A short spell of the seven years' itch is more desir- 
able about the house than a fault-finding and scolding 
man or woman. Ten volts of three minutes' duration 
of these shocking creatures will upset a whole house- 
hold for a week. 



AN ARTFUL TALE. 

Down in the Tobasco Country, near the coast, the 
climate is very hot, and the natives, who are Indians, 
sleep out on the grass and leaves. The Indian mo- 



EARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 239 

thers, with their infants nursing at the breast, chose a 
shady spot for their siesta, and in a short time all are 
sound asleep, when a milk snake crawls cautiously up 
to where they are and places the end of its tail in the 
mouth of the child, to keep it from crying, and then 
leisurely nurses at the sleeping mother's breast. 
When it has finished it as quietly crawls away, with- 
out doing any harm further than robbing the infant 
of its nourishment. 



'TIS AN ILL WIND. 

A man who is losing money is doing well for the 
other fellow, who is getting it. 



THE LONGS AND SHORTS. 

Ike went long on stocks, and now he's longing for 
his money. Jack went shorj; of the market and his 
cash to boot. They gambled on ticker roulette options, 
and now it is optional with them which is the biggest 
fool. 



AFTER CHICAGO FOR DAMAGES. 

Away back in the early part of the seventies I was 
out in the Rocky Mountains, with pick and shovel, 
prospecting for sudden wealth, when I came across 
a whole tribe of Indians, frozen to death in a deep 
gulch. I set immediately my mentalophone to work 
to grind out a plan to utilize the Indians for com- 
mercial purposes, and was fortunate enough to hit 
upon an idea which went successfully for a time. I 



240 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

get to work shoveling frozen Indians out of the snow, 
and in three days I had a hundred of the finest speci- 
mens anybody would want to look at. Then I made 
a contract with an old stage-driver to haul my frozen 
aborigines down to Chicago, where I rented them 
out as signs for cigar store fronts, at five dollars a 
month each Indian. Here was a good business, 
bringing me five hundred dollars a month — six thou- 
sand a year — until that O'Leary cow fire came along 
and thawed out all my Indians, so that they ran off 
and left me, and now I'm per-suing Chicago for the 
loss of my property. 



A GREAT ADVANTAGE 

Is held by the fellow who keeps his temper over 
the one flying into a passion. 



WHAT PAYS. 

Money made dishonestly never does its owner any 
good. It pays to be honest at all times and under all 
circumstances. 



THE RUIN OF MANY A GOOD BUSI- 
NESS. 

Many a good enterprise has been ruined on account 
of envy, jealousy, dissension and outside influence. 
One of the greatest barriers to man's success is lack 
cf will power. Man makes up his mind to do or no^ 



BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 241 

to do a thing, and through lack of will power, when 
the time to act comes, he weakens. Thousands of 
people to-day are poor, for no other cause than this 
want of force of character to take them through the 
world in good condition, morally and financially, and 
fairly free from outside influences. 



FALSE FRIENDS. 

Many a good, liberal-hearted fellow, with no dis- 
honest intentions, has come to grief and ignominy 
through false and treacherous friends. 



DUST. 

Man was made of dust, and he must get up and 
dust, for he needs dust while he lives, but returns to 
dust when he dies. It's dust, just dust. 



WE FORGET OUR LESSONS. 

Experience is a great teacher, but many of her 
pupils seem to forget their lessons as fast as learned. 



MOTHER WON'T BE WITH YOU AL- 
WAYS. 

Dear children : Be good to your mother and mind 
what she says, for she will not be with you always. 
Our great Father in heaven will send for her to come 
up there and you will be left alone in the world until 
God, in his good time, sends the angel to take you 



242 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

where mother is. The way to be ready to go is to be 
good as long as you live, and remember that you are 
children of God, no matter how old you may be. 
Never outgrow the innocence of childhood. 



THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. 

It is much easier for one getting along well in life 
to do right than it is for one in hard luck. 



WORMS OF ART. 

Art worms are those which produce antique, worm- 
eaten furniture, for those who make a business of 
selling this art work of worms to people with more 
money than they know what to do with. 



PAN-AMERICA. 

To the merchants and business men generally of 
the United States : All through Mexico, Central and 
South America, complaints are heard of circulars be- 
ing received from all parts of this country, printed in 
the English language, which is not understood by 
these peoples ; hence the circulars are thrown away 
and do the senders no good. All communications in- 
tended for these countries, either in the form of let- 
ters, circulars or catalogues, should be in the Spanish 
language, otherwise it is money wasted. The author, 
while traveling through these countries, had his at- 
tention called to a number of catalogues, circulars, 
etc., in English, from American manufacturers of 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 243 

shoes, hats, machinery, fancy goods, dry goods, hard- 
ware, groceries, etc. , while there were also circulars 
and catalogues in the Spanish language, representing 
the same lines of goods from England, France and 
Germany, which countries are doing a good business 
with Spanish America, but whose trade should come 
to their great sister republic, north of the Rio Grande. 
Another serious complaint is in relation to the bad 
packing of American products, which are usually put 
up in thin, light, cheap pine, or other soft wood frames, 
crates and boxes, so that, by the time they reach 
their destination, the cases are broken, and their con- 
tents damaged, while European goods are well pack- 
ed and arrive in prime condition. This state of af- 
fairs exists all the way from Mexice down to the Ar- 
gentine Republic. If the United States wishes to get 
the trade and commerce of her sister republics south 
of the Rio Grande she must be up and doing, and 
compete in price, quality, packing, terms, etc., with 
Europe, else there will be no business there for Uncle 
Sam. 



COULDN'T GIVE AN EXPLANATION. 

Not one in fifty, if called upon to give an explana- 
tion of themselves, could explain the thing. 



FOOL INCUBATORS. 

A new suit and a little, jewelry often turns a person's 
mind and develops a fool. A little success fetches 
out a fool every now and then. A young man sent 
away from home to school sometimes comes back a 



244 BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 

fool. Extravagances build up pauperism and indebt- 
edness. Liquor develops more kinds of fool than 
anything else. 



WHERE POVERTY IS DANGEROUS. 
There's nothing dishonest in being poor, but it is 
dangerous to let it get noised around among one's 
creditors. 



THAT IS LOVE! 

A pretty face or ankle strikes terror to a water-log- 
ged-brained young mule colt, turning its head into a 
mush pot, stirred with imagination, causing the poor 
thing to suffer love-sickness, high fever, and run out 
of its mind, chasing a mocking bird, thinking it a 
dove. 



TURN ABOUT. 
Peace and war take turn about as leaders in the 
march of time. 



HELD UP BY A BANDIT. 

An uptown society woman has lit upon a new fad — 
she employs a bandit to hold up her train. 



INVENTOR AND TRANSGRESSOR. 

The way of the inventor is, in a sense, like that of 
the transgressor. Both are hard. The former toils and 
suffers untold hardships in the endeavor to do good. 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 245 

while the latter suffers, and rightfully too, for his 
wrongdoing. The question arises, ' ' What are we 
here for and what is it all about ? " 



THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 

Consists in chasing the golden calf and getting hold of 
as much of that particular bull yearling as possible, 
holding fast to what you do get. 



CHRIST WANTS NO SUFFERING. 
Our Lord and Saviour wants no human being or 
thing to suffer for His sake. His desire is that we all 
live in peace and happiness. He did all the suffering 
necessary for mankind. 



ANTIDOTES FOR WEARINESS. 

Anecdotes are antidotes for weariness. They are 
to life what good seasoning is to the table. 



A ONE-ARMED HORSE-THIEF. 

A horse-thief in our neighborhood was convicted of 
stealing a mule, and sentenced to be jugged for ten 
years. When sentenced by the court the prisoner 
took consolation in the belief that he would not 
have to work, being a one-armed man. Next day the 
sheriff started with his prisoner for the Penitentiary, 
and, upon arriving there, the usual formalities were 
gone through with, such as taking the height, noting 
the age, weight, etc. , of the prisoner. When all was 



246 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

finished, the prison keeper remarked, to the surprise 
of the prisoner, that he had just the place for him in 
the workshop, to turn the grindstone ! The thief al- 
most collapsed and has regretted many times since 
that he ever stole that mule. 



RESPITE. 

A few hours respite from the toils, troubles and 
worries of daily life is where the theatre plays its 
part. Long live the theatre ! 



POOR ESTIMATE OF RICHES. 

The fortunes of wealthy people are, as a rule, much 
overestimated. 



PEOPLE WHO ROB THEMSELVES. 
It is the misfortune of some good advisers that 
they give all their good advice to others and keep 
none for their own use. 



DE BONE DON'T FIGHT. 

During the war, while the Union army was in 
Georgia, a fine, healthy negro sauntered into the Feder- 
al camp one day, when one of the officers said to him : 
■ ' Why don't you shoulder a musket and fight for 
your freedom?" The negro looked at the officer 
with astonishment for a moment, then replied : ' « Boss, 
didn't you neber see two dogs fitin' over a bone ? " 
"Yes, " replied the officer, "but what has that got to 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 247 

do with the case ?" "Why," says the darkey, " didn't 
you neber notice dat the bone don't fite." 



WHAT IS INSPIRATION? 
Inspiration is, in the nature of things, God in spirit 
within man, guiding him in a mysterious way to ac- 
complish great and g ood things. We find evidence 
of this in progressive science and practical Christian- 
ity solving problems and bestowing blessings upon hu- 
manity. • ' What God hath wrought ! " 



CHASING AN ARMADILLO WITH A CAN- 
OPENER. 

While riding through the forests of South America, 
with my Indian guide, we came one day on a hard 
shell animal, which looked like the butt-end of a can- 
non. I fired two shots at it, and the balls glanced off 
just as if they had struck a rock, and the animal got 
away. I inquired of my Indian guide what the thing 
was, and he told me it was an armadillo. Then I 
knew there was no use wasting any more cartridges 
on the thing, but remembering I had a can-opener 
along, I fished it out and stuck it under my belt, fully 
determined that if we came across another armadillo 
it should be captured or I should know the reason 
why. We hadn't gone more than a mile when up 
jumped another, and I took after it on horseback at a 
breakneck speed, and after a hard chase over logs, 
ravines and sage-brush we caught up with the thing, 
and it turned upon my horse for a fight. Instantly I 
was on the ground, with can-opener in hand, and 
pounced upon the infuriated animal. Then occurred 



248 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

such a hand-to-hand fight as the world never saw. 
Why, hairbreath escapes with Rocky Mountain griz- 
zlies ain't in it along with this battle, because there 
are soft places on a bear to get at, but on this fellow 
no. Rough, tough and tumble, we had it and fought 
for our lives, biting and scratching, as we rolled down 
a hillside over sharp, pointed rocks and brush. First 
I was on top and then the dillo would have an inning, 
till at last we struck into a nest of yellow jackets. 
That settled it : the thing had me foul when the jack- 
ets took up the fight in its favor, and it got away. 
And myself, why, that afternoon my eyes were swell- 
ed up so tight from the stings of the yellow jackets 
that the sun went down four hours ahead of time. 



CANNON BALLS AND FLATTERY. 

Men have been known to face shot and shell in bat- 
tle, and come out unhurt, yet these same men may be 
compelled to fall dead broke under the fire of flattery. 



SELFISH INHUMANITY. 
If man loses money in legitimate business, or a 
thief steals it, he will complain bitterly, but if he robs 
himself at the gaming table or wickedly squanders 
his money, it's all right in his biassed estimation. 
Man's injustice to himself is the tap root of evil. 



BALLOON TOADS. 
Down among the sugar cane fields, in the State of 
Zuchil Cruz, snakes of enormous size wriggle about 
in the endeavor to catch ground rats, and when the 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 249 

cane is ready to cut, the natives, who live in deadly 
fear of these Zuchil serpents, will not work in the 
fields till they have been destroyed, which is done in 
the following manner : A professional-snake killer is 
employed, with trained balloon toads, about the size 
of an ordinary frog, but with the capability of swell- 
ing up to the size of a foot-ball. A number of these 
toads are placed in a basket, which the professor car- 
ries on his arm, and when he sees a snake he pulls 
out a balloon toad and throws it to the reptile, which 
speedily swallows it. Then the toad instantly swells 
up and bursts the snake wide open, when out hops Mr. 
Toad, unharmed, goes back to the professor, and hops 
into the basket to again await its turn to be fed to a 
snake as a piece of living dynamite. The professor 
informed me that he had some prize balloon toads, 
with a record of eleven snakes busted in eleven min- 
utes. 



CREED AND CONSCIENCE. 

It matters nothing with God what your religion is, 
so long as you are conscientious in you belief. 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
The author of this epistle, to whom it may concern, 
is in favor of woman suffrage to the fullest extent. 
Woman should not only be permitted to vote, but she 
should hold office, from President of the United 
States down to bailiff. I should like to see our State 
Legislatures, Governors and the Senate and Congress 
in Washington, D. C, composed entirely of women. 
If such was the case to-day, instead of hard times, 



250 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

caused by bamboozle plumbago legislation, we would 
have peace and prosperity. Anything that woman 
is not in sinks into a yoke of oxen and desuetude. 



LET THOUGHT PRECEDE ACTION. 

'Tis fallacy to complain of the legitimate conse- 
quences of one's own acts, though they equal the tor- 
ments of hell. Always think out the possible conse- 
quences of your acts. 



WHEN THE WORLD WAS A BABY. 

When the world was a baby, 

Time was a baby, too; 
Both were the infant progeny 

Of God, the light and the true. 

Light was life upon the earth, 
Vegetable and animal, like you — 

Time had risen to a higher birth, 
When our race began with two. 

Pa Adam and Ma Eve were these — 

Who settled in heav'nly Eden. 
'Mid flowers and tropic trees, 

And all things plenty in season. 

But Satan came, as forbidden fruit, 
To tempt them to eat, to their shame, 

His wile was too strong to refute, 
So out from the garden they came. 

Both, now naked, wanted relief, 

So Adam tackled the groves, 
Returning with a banana leaf, 

All he could find for robes. 






BARBY COEY S PHILOSOPHY. 2$I 

Then Adam started a ranch of his own, 
With his mate and companion, Eve — 

Where appeared the world's first born — 
But neither could spin nor weave. 

In need of a change of garments, 

Adam again took to the woods, 
Returning with skins of varmints, 

Which made up more seemly duds. 

Only death was now missing, 

On the wide sea and fair earth, 
Though life kept increasing, 

Through intermarriage and birth. 

Death came, and the world, completed, 

Started on its journey an orb, 
When other planets greeted 

The work of our Father, the Lord. 



HOW TO BE HAPPY WHETHER YOU'VE 
GOT A CENT OR NOT. 

For example, suppose you were dead broke, but 
yet heir to a rich estate, soon to be divided, of which 
you were to receive your portion, and enjoy happiness 
and comfort the rest of your life, your temporary em- 
barrassment might easily be endured. Though you 
hadn't a cent in your pocket, you would manage to 
get along, some way or other, till your inheritance 
came. This is the condition of every human being 
on earth, rich or poor; it makes no difference how 
much or little they may have, they are all heirs, joint- 
ly and equally interested and entitled to a rich inher- 
itance in our Father's estate above, which they will 
receive at the beginning of their new life. This is 



252 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

the way in which to enjoy life, whether you've got a 
cent or not. You are all right. It is only a question 
of time when you will be in possession of a palace, 
with all the luxuries a human being can possibly en- 
joy, surrounded by friends who have gone before and 
are waiting and watching for you. 



UMBRELLAS AND CANES. 
There is an art in carrying umbrellas and canes, of 
which many persons are ignorant. They go through 
streets and crowded places with these warlike imple- 
ments under their arms, striking out forward and aft, 
jabbing people in the face and all portions of the 
body, making themselves all-around nuisances, just 
as if they had been brought up in cranberry bogs. 
These people are first cousins to the unloaded revol- 
ver fools, and they should be given a wide berth. 



QUEEN VICTORIA. 

Among the greatest names that history will record 
is Victoria, Queen of England, which will be handed 
down as the name of the most intelligent, the wisest 
ruler and the greatest queen that ever sat upon a 
throne. May she live long in the land, and enjoy 
the fruits thereof. 



PORFIRIO DIAZ. 
General Porfirio Diaz, President of the Republic of 
Mexico, has done more toward developing the re- 
sources of Mexico and bringing her up to the front rank 
among the nations of the world, than all of his pre- 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 253 

decessors combined. May peace and progress attend 
Mexico and her people always ! 



FRANCE. 

The name of Lafayette is a golden link which holds 
France sacred in the memory of the hearts of the 
American people. Bartholdi, whose Statue of Liberty 
adorns New York harbor, with its light of welcome 
and equal rights and justice for all, is a gift of the 
French people to America, the sight of which con- 
stantly keeps warm the heart of every American citi- 
zen toward France and her people. 



RUSSIA. 

No nation in Europe has made greater strides of 
progress in the past fifty years than has Russia. She 
is very much alive, and is growing stronger and 
healthier daily. One of these days there will be a 
war in Europe, and when it is over Russia will have 
a little more territory. Whether there should be a 
war or not, she is after it, anyway. 



GERMANY. 

No race of people that ever came to our shores has 
done more toward the practical development of the 
internal resources of America than the Germans. 
Wherever you see a German colony there you will 
find progress and industry. Success to Germany and 
the German people for evermore. 



SPAIN AND ITALY. 
It is nip and tuck between Spain and Italy, who 



254 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

will get there first. But the question arises whither 
are they bound? 

IRELAND. 

The national peculiarity about the Irishman is that 
if there is anything to be done he's among the first in 
it and the last to leave, especially in politics and war. 
No better soldier ever shouldered a musket than an 
Irishman. He never knows when he is licked, and 
even when wounded to the death, will declare that he 
wore himself out licking the enemy. Among the 
most prosperous and industrious of our business men 
to-day, who have built up enormous enterprises, giv- 
ing employment to thousands of wage-earners, are the 
Sons of the Emerald Isle. 



AULD SCOTIA'S SONS. 
Probably the finest human stock that ever appeared 
on the earth are the Scotch. They are certainly 
among the first to take hold of everything for the 
good and welfare of mankind. Industrious, sincere 
and speculative, they yet use wonderful discretion in 
what they undertake. As soldiers and citizens there 
are none better. 



THE "CHOSEN PEOPLE." 

The Jews are a thrifty, hustling race, who make 
money where others would starve to death. Be it said, 
to their credit, we rarely see a Jew tramp or a 
beggar. In banking, finance and commerce, Hebrews 
are in the front rank. 



THE HONEST HOLLANDER. 
A people who don't say much, but get there and 
stay there, as a rule, are the Dutch of Holland. 



BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 255 

They are very conservative and as economical and in- 
dustrious as bees. The finest-looking women in 
Europe are to be found in Holland. 



CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA. 

. We need a continental dollar, good for its face value 
» from Alaska to Patagonia, Canada, Mexico, Central 
and South America, the inhabitants of which countries 
are all Americans, in the sense that they, like the 
United States, go to make up the population of the 
American Continent. We are, in truth, all Americans 
in this sense, and should stand by one another, our 
interests being mutual. 



THAT APPLE. 

It is the opinion of this Court, after a fair and im- 
partial trial, lasting thousands of years, that, in the 
case of Eve versus the snake, the aforesaid serpent 
was not in it, and therefore not guilty. It was a mu- 
tual affair between Adam and Eve, who were equally 
interested in tasting of the fruit of the tree of know- 
ledge. That's all. 



A FIT CLOSING TO OUR CENTURY. 

In justice to the red man we should elect the fol- 
lowing Presidential Ticket ; and we also name the an- 
nexed Presidential family for the closing administra- 
tion of the Nineteenth Century : 

For President. 
Red Cloud. 

For Vice-President. 
Running Antelope. 

Secretary of State. 
Gieronimo. 



2$6 BARBY COEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

Secretary of War. 

Little Wound. 

Secretary of the Navy. 

American Horse. 

Secretary of the Treasury. 

Chief Joseph. 

Secretary of Agriculture. 

Rain in the Face. 

Secretary of the Interior, 
Rocky Bear. 

Attorney General. 
Spotted Tail. 

Post Master General. 
Big Road. 

THE LAST CHAPTER, IN ANSWER TO 
WHAT WE ARE HERE FOR. 

Now, my dear friends, we have come to the last 
chapter of this work, and in conclusion I desire to im- 
press upon your minds the all-important truth of life, 
and that is that this world is only one of many of 
God's nurseries for propagating human beings for 
the purpose of peopling heaven. It is not likely that 
I shall have the pleasure of meeting personally the 
millions of readers of this book, although I would like 
to, therefore let us have an understanding that we 
shall meet and become personally acquainted at our 
mutual mansion in the skies, there to live in peace 
and joy forever. Our first life is here on earth. The 
second is hereafter, the crowning glory of the first. 
This is what we are here for and what it is all about. 
Sincerely Your Friend, 

Barby Coey. 






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